Altristic Memories
by Amaterusa
Summary: You didn't think it was over did you? Welcome Benevolent Fans as Sesshomaru finds a girl too close  and yet so different from the woman he once loved to stand it. Rage filled and hateful he is at a loss as she puts the full-blooded Demon in his place; with room to spare.  Post cannon, Sess X OC  Review on my completed story please. Thank you, Amaterusa.
1. The Girl With The Stolen Soul

The school festival had finally finished. The costumes worn for their class's contribution made the weather unbearable, but like things that worked well every year, they had followed a set plan. A mystic Café had been chosen after a group vote. Each member to serve in the 'front lines' had to be dressed from a Japanese myth. She was just so unfortunate to have been chosen for Amaterasu: Mythological Goddess of the Sun. The most annoying part of the costume where the items she had to heft around; they were not light.

The items were things the goddess later gifted to her grandson when she sent him to Japan as the first emperor. A mirror, a jewel and sword, though fake, weighed enough that she stopped often to take a breather.

"Hey miss?" The girl looked startled from her own thoughts at a couple of guys in school uniforms, but not from her own.

"Yes? Can I help you?" The boys looked at her a moment and one spoke, if not sheepishly.

"You were the girl from the school festival today, right?" She nodded and tried to hid her face. It was bad enough she had to walk home in this get up, but to have someone stop her on the street was just embarrassing.

"Uh yeah. The festival is over so I hope you had enough fun. I hope you will think about attending our school next year. I have to go now, but thank you for attending our festival." She grabbed the things she had set down and bowed before turning to leave.

"Ah wait! We really enjoyed the festival and wanted to know, seeing as we're still in the mood for fun, if you might come with us." The other boy stepped forward with a smile.

"I wish I could. I do have to go home though. I have things to do. Perhaps some other time?" The boy closest to her clasped her elbow and stopped her before she could walk away.

"Then your name. Can we have at least that?" She smiled somewhat relived to be only asked her name.

"Kusabana Ren." Both boys smiled and she felt a trickle of cold air rush down her back. "I have to go now, excuse me." But the boy did not release her arm.

"But we want to have fun."

.

Over the years, school began to teach basic skills girls could use to fend off men with ill intentions and she thanked god that she paid attention when she had thought them useless.

She was too far from her house to out run them and hid behind the security of her home and she didn't want them to know where she lived anyways.

.

"You don't understand…" Ren tried to pull her arm away, but the boy held on too tightly... so she improvised as best she could and shattered the mirror point blank in his face and ran as fast as she could before the other boy caught her. It was bad and she knew it. She should have dropped the heavy items in her hands from the start, but if she did now it would tell those guys what way she had gone and she could already hear them behind her. The guy she had broken the mirror on screamed and swore his outrage down the street.

"Run faster…. Faster." She encouraged herself to run. She couldn't help but feel discouraged though. The street lights started clicking on one after another as the sun sank with her once happy mood.

"Come back here!" She could hear them down the way and her legs started to shake even as she ran. Fear was consuming her even as she fled; images and thoughts flashing before her of what guys like this could and might do if they caught her.

"Go away!" It was a plea and a wish all at once. Anything, anyone that could help, she just wanted to go home and not think about what was about to happen. Without paying attention anymore to where she was running she turned left and found herself at a Shinto shrine; one she had attended once at the new years a few years back. Her heart sank when she realized her folly when she had turned down this way. This Shinto shrine had one entrance and one exit, no other way to go but inside as the distance closed between her and the men behind her. Her eyes scanned the open space meant for mediation and holy rites before falling on a run down but kept shed.

"Be open. Be open, be…" The door had a lock over it but it was not hinged right. There was no time for _thank you_'s as the voices became louder and louder. She slid the door shut quietly and stepped away.

"She came in here. I saw her Shinji." The voices boomed like they were just outside the door and she backed away further.

_Why aren't they leaving? Why won't they just go away!_

"Let's go. I'm not getting caught by some old man because you have an itch in your pants." The words disgusted her and she flung her hands over her mouth. Her heavy breathing had to be loud enough to be heard outside if they listened, not to mention the pound of her heart.

"Meow!" The sound startled Ren as she backed away more from the door.

"Shut up you stupid cat!" She whispered her outrage as the fat white and orange cat stalked out from under the shelving unit.

"Meow!" The cat mewed even louder and so she was forced to hide in the darkest corner she could find when pale light exploded into the shed.

"Found you." The boys no longer had sweet eyes for her. Instead it was replaced by rage and loath and things her mind refused to comprehend. There were things these guys wanted to do that made her freeze, unable to say anything or even scream of help.

"Good kitty." The boy kicked the cat aside and his friend stepped in behind the first.

The door closed behind her and her imagination and fear sparked one thought.

"_Don't let me die here…"_

The boy that seemed to call the shots stepped over the threshold and grabbed her wrists and jerked her hard to the side.

"I have a good idea… You are going to hold onto my friend here for dear life. I'm going to lean you over this well here and if you don't want to fall... you're gonna hold tight, right?" Ren looked at his friend hoping for some kind of emotions that said he was disgusted and would leave or even help her, but there was none. Instead he looked like he was just being inconvenienced.

"_Oh god help me…"_

With a shove the guy holding her shoved her back, but her arms flung out and grabbed him.

"Please don't do this. Please… I'll do anything to make you stop this." But he only shoved her again, this time succeeding. The other boy grabbed her wrists and grinned.

"Hold on." And he let go. The boy who pushed her began to kiss her inner knee and slid a hand upwards. Instinctively she screamed.

"Shut her up!" But his friends' hands were supporting her and he could not move. "Fuck." He pulled a pair of arm bands used for sports from his shoulder bag and rammed then in her mouth, instantly silencing her. For a moment both men did not move and Ren whimpered and tried to pull away from them.

"Hurry up. I want a go... She's rather cute in this outfit of hers." Her costume was white and glossy. Its length was down below her knees and had silver embroidery. A good friend was in the sewing club and had made it for her especially.

"Yeah, yeah." With one hand he slipped his hand further up her inner thigh and she squirmed against him.

"Don't do that. Play nice and well will let you go home without looking like you've been had by a hand full of guys rather than just two." His other hands pulled and tugged at his pants and she squint her eyes shut.

"_Please!"_

"You in here you stupid cat?" The door slid open and a boy of maybe fifteen stood with a confused look on his face. "Hey, what are you doing in here? Get…" It was then he seen the whole set up. Ren seen this as her moment to escape and thrashed, her foot landing hard in the guy's crotch. His cry of agony startled his friend who stepped away from the well forcing Ren to let go.

Her muffled surprise was all that could be heard before the sound of scrapping as she hurdled down into darkness. Her arms outstretch and her fingers grinded against the wells brick walls, but failed to slow her decent let alone stop her. Another muffled cry was cut short as a brick sticking out caught her shoulder and a loud crack exploded in her ears followed by pain. The impact threw her head painfully into the well and scraped so much it burned before her vision faded as the ground rushed up to meet her.

She never felt the impending impact with the bottom of the well.

.

As was a constant in life, on every first week of the month Sesshomaru came to visit Rin with a new kimono. The village elder who was used to his presence after many years, Kaede, sat outside listening to the whiles of another.

"He doesn't ever listen! Will he ever learn?" The woman was dressed in the robes of a priestess and from behind a man cloaked in red clutched his hands above his head as if choking an invisible foe.

"Kagome! I listened! You asked me to catch you fish and I did! What was there to get wrong?" The girl turned around and fumed. Suddenly the man stuck his hands in front of him and waved them. "No, no, no… I'm sorry. I'll get it ri…"

"Sit, sit, SIT!" Her voice echoed and the earth shook. The man in red was propelled downward into the ground forming a crater and the girl turned and stormed away. "Ah, Sesshomaru Nii-sama. Good day." He nodded in his normal gruff manor and she stepped around him. He was not fond of his half-brothers woman, but he did enjoy watching her torment InuYasha.

"Poor InuYasha. He's got it good and he treats her like that…?" The elder smiled and chuckled, Sesshomaru ignored her and his brother all together before stopping abruptly. Something stirred in the recesses of his mind; something from long ago…

"Rem..." Kaede looked at him puzzled.

"I'm sorry what did you say about Rin?" Sesshomaru ignored the old crone and walked away in the direction of the wind.

.

He was sure of this smell. However could he forget? It was cloying like the sweet allure of wild blossoms on a spring day. The air washed clean after sailing leagues over open water. It wasn't until he allowed his mind to recall where he stepped that he realized just where he was. As he got closer the smell mingled with terror and the scent of men... men with evil thoughts.

Dangerous thoughts.

"The Well is near here. Does the portal between that woman's world and this one still lay open? Or has it been breached?" The forest trees thinned enough where he could see the clearing that surrounded the well. Since long ago the bones of demons had been thrown there to dispel their evil intentions even after death. Kagome had been the only one to have come out of it though.

Sesshomaru's mind ceased to function as he stared at the Well.

"I-Impossible." Sprawled outside the Well, tattered and covered in white, was a human girl. As he stepped closer the smell which was etched into his memory was unbelievably similar; almost identical. When he drew close enough to see true form he realized that she was not only shrouded in white as he thought, but her skin was of pure alabaster.

Draped in dirt-stained, white clothes and tailored with silver accents the girl twitched and moaned. The girl was broken... Her arm was twisted behind her and her hair, sweat soaked, matted to her face. Her figure was a mirror image of Rem's and the smell could not be anything but her. No one else could have such a scent as hers. His hand instinctively reached out to her and when a finger touched her face the girl woke... And scrambled backwards.

"No!" The scream made him stand up slowly surprise. Her voice was a dagger in his chest; the voice was also similar... too similar. This girl was something else altogether, but the same just as well.

"You are injured." Instantly the girl dragged her self-further away, something which sent rage through him. "I will not hurt you." He wanted to just look at her face. Just to confirm a small hope in his mind. Even if it was impossible, but the smell of misdeed was too strong on her; she would trust no one.

"Don't!" The arm she used to try and stand swung limp at her side and she screamed as the dislocated places ground together. Tears trickled down the white skin underneath straight brown hair. She was hysterical and even given her arm she tried to stand, to run; to escape.

_I have seen this before..._

"This will hurt." He warned her before grabbing her arm, which she tried to avoid, and with a sharp pull he wrenched her arm back in place. Her final scream was long and hollowed out from crying and screaming. She gasped before fainting forward into him and he caught her before she hit the ground. The image startled him, frightened him. Memories he wished better left forgotten were dredged forward as she lay in the cradle of his arm.

Her arms hung beneath her, head tilted back; almost lifeless as Rem had once done after she plummeted to her death over 500 years ago. He almost wanted to just leave the girl and forget her, but she mumbled in her unconsciousness which bristled against him and responsibility told him to do something. Tenseiga shone and he resolved to at least leave her with the village elder. Perhaps Rin would care for her.

"Kaza…" He begrudgingly returned to the village carrying the girl of white with the broken mirror, jewel and sword. Items that sang when he touched them and which made him wrap them so he would not touch them again. He never did try to glimpse her face and he tried with difficulty to ignore the smell of eager hands that were all over her body.

And even more so the anger the erupted because of it.


	2. The Names of Humans And Demons

She was hot and sticky and there was not a single part of her didn't ache. Ren sat up on the floor mat and winced as she looked at her swollen arm while attempting to force her eyes focused.

"What am I doing..."

Everything came rushing back.

The festival, the boys, the chase and the well. She began to cry and wondered where she was when the door opened and a boy walked in with a girl next to him.

"You're awake." He glared at her and she was so afraid that he was going to hurt her that just started screaming.

"It's alright. It's alright. No one is going to hurt you..." The girl ran forward and sat on the bed, hands wrapped around Ren. "He's not able to hurt you anyways..." The boy looked at Ren with strange and extremely intent eyes.

"Where am I and who are you?" The girl eyed the boy and they both looked at each other with the strangest look ever. _What is he looking at?_

"I'm Kagome and this is... InuYasha." His name made no sense what so ever.

"InuYasha...? As in dog..."

"Yup." Ren sat up better and thought about what Kagome said a little more and decided it hurt too much to think about it.

"Where am I?" Both the strangers exchanged the strange look and the boy left the room.

"Umm... Can I ask where you are from first?" Ren eyed Kagome a moment before answering about her home, school and even about the boys who had chased her.

"...They cornered me in the well... they..." Ren's voice choked off and the boy came back in and stopped right besides Ren's bed.

"I'm sorry, but... can I smell you?" He was serious. _You have to be kidding._

"InuYasha!" Kagome sounded ready to kill him. _Omg, he is serious!_

"Y-you want to _smell_ me? Really?" He nodded his head and Ren looked at Kagome for some kind of explanation. "I-I guess..."

InuYasha sniffed at the air around her and then super close as in, dude-i-can-see-into-your-pores-back-off kind of way.

"This can't be right...Kagome... I need to talk to you. Outside. Now." Ren looked like she had just opened Pandora's box or something. She was terrified. "Your fine, there is nothing wrong with you and I will never lay a hand on you because you are a human. Just relax and get better." InuYasha said everything she was thinking and everything she needed to calm down... pity it didn't calm her down though. _If I'm human, what does that make you? _She thought about the name some and more then ran her hands through her hair.

.

From outside the hut InuYasha stood and told her about a woman he had met hundreds of years before... someone who Sesshomaru would have known.

"So what if she smells the same as someone from long ago... Sesshomaru obviously didn't think it was her... he..." She stopped talking and InuYasha spun around.

"Sesshomaru... You can smell it too, can't you?" Sesshomaru said nothing and passed the hut by for the one Rin stayed in.

"So who was the woman then?" Kagome was interested beyond normal girl-ish means. This involved Sesshomaru. Sesshomaru wasn't impressed by this change is attention though.

"InuYasha." Sesshomaru stopped at the door to Rin's hut. "Do not speak of things that have nothing to do with you." InuYasha growled and Kagome was unsure of what to do next. He didn't know how to explain that he'd seen the woman Sesshomaru had kept. Talked with her... even if she hadn't really liked him, she had been a great deal better than what Sesshomaru grown into.

"Umm... Kagome. She's escaping..." Kagome turned around to see the girl from her own world running at break neck speeds.

"InuYasha. Help me bring her back. She has no idea what it out there." He nodded his head and tore off after Ren. If she even knew what was out there she would never had left the safe confines of the hut.

.

_Don't let them find me. Don't let them get me. Don't let me die like this... I just want to go home..._ Ren was running so fast that even her thoughts were coming in breaths.

"Hey! Girl! Get back here!" Ren turned to look behind her and saw the boy, InuYasha actually running through the trees. _Oh dear god, help me. There is something wrong with this boy! _"It's not safe out here."

She ran harder until he suddenly dropped down before of her; she slid on her back when she tried to stop too quickly and instantly turned and ran back the other way. In the time it took her to look back at InuYasha she had already run into something else and fell backward save for the hand that stopped her from hitting the ground.

"Let go of me!" She was let go and fell the last bit to the ground.

"Sesshomaru-sama! InuYasha!" Kagome and another girl came running and didn't stop until they reached Ren. Ren was no longer home though. She stared up at Sesshomaru like she had never seen a man before. Then again, Sesshomaru was a demon and far from human looking.

"What are you?" Sesshomaru didn't answer. He turned his back and walked away. Even in a state of shock she could tell something wasn't right with InuYasha and something definitely wasn't right with this man. The very aura around him spoke volumes. They had white hair but looked barely older than her.

I have killed, destroyed and annihilated things out of existence. You are just a small spec on the great plot of life.

"That... I mean him? That is Sesshomaru. That is InuYasha's half-brother." Ren eyed InuYasha and the back of Sesshomaru. Kagome touched Ren's cheeks and shook her head. "We have to get you back. Your fever is sky-rocketing." The other girl settled in closer to Ren and smiled.

"I'm sorry. I have not seen you awake yet. I am Rin and I have been taking care of you with Kagome since Sesshomaru-sama brought you to us. How are you feeling...?" Ren realized that she knew everyone else's name, but she had yet to give them hers.

"I'm Kusabana Ren." InuYasha choked and Kagome slapped him in the back to help.

"What did you say your name was?" He was way too close again. He didn't have a personal bubble apparently.

"Ren. Kusabana Ren." InuYasha took his hand and ran a clawed finger beneath her hair line to see her forehead. She held her breathe as if moving was the difference between life and death.

She instantly blacked out as soon as his finger made contact.


	3. Memories Of Rem

"No, you really don't get it. That girl, that woman in the other room is a reincarnation. I've met her before. It's like when you first came through the well. I actually took you for Kikyo. The girl is Sesshomaru's... ah..." InuYasha stopped having realized Sesshomaru's previous ward was with them still. He wasn't sure if she knew anything about Rem... Hell, he'd only met her a handful of times and by pure accident. Sesshomaru seemed to make sure of that.

"I've never heard of Sesshomaru-sama's past. He would not speak of it with me..." Rin looked at her hands and then at Ren who was still unconscious after the incident in the forest.

"You know what? I kind of feel weird around this girl too... like I've even met her before. But I'd notice a girl like her. Just look at that hair." Kagome brushed Ren's long, pin straight hair while Rin changed the cloth on her head.

"You think? This girl is..." InuYasha hushed is voice and bent closer to Kagome and Rin. "This girl smells, looks and that thing that happened with her head? I'm telling you. This is the Reincarnation of Rem." Rin and Kagome exchanged confused looks.

"Ok... and who is Rem?" Kagome asked before Rin had. InuYasha sighed and itched his ear.

"You won't believe this. And it's the only thing in Sesshomaru's life that deserves remembering... even if she seemed to hate me too. Aside from you Rin... Rem was the name of the woman he married over five hundred years ago... That bastard, Naraku..." Kagome shivered and Rin looked away at the mention of that name.

"What happened to Rem, InuYasha?" He stopped and suddenly felt like this was something he shouldn't have mentioned. He didn't even have the whole story and Kagome would want the whole story.

"She died... From what I understand she fell off a cliff protecting her kid..." Rin's eyes widened in shock. Kagome looked ready to cry. "Naraku... he used Rem's twin as the body double used to make me and Kikyo fight... he'd used a spell to make her smell and sound the same... Turns out Naraku... you know what? I can't say this...It's not any of my business. You want to find out. Talk to him." InuYasha left without saying another word. He was clearly not happy about anything that was going on here. It was a sore spot for himself all the same.

"Sesshomaru-sama had a child once..." Rin looked at the girl in the bed and wiped the sweat from her cheek away. "She is very pretty this girl..." _It was no wonder Sesshomaru had fallen for her._

"Actually... he had two..." Kaede came in and sat with her hand on Ren's hand. She looked closely at her face and spoke to Kagome and Rin. "The first had been killed by the second. He was forced to do it if I heard properly... Everything that Sesshomaru is today is because of what happened to him then... It's amazing the information you can find when you only have to look..." Kaede pulled out a parchment what was greyed and worn beyond years. On it, penned in ink was Sesshomaru's name and one other.

"Rem..." Rin took the paper and read it over and over. "He loved this woman then." Kaede looked sadly at Rin. "You might understand a bit about Sesshomaru if I explain these two things I do know. The first is that his children names were Jin... well Jina, and Kohaku..." Rin and Kagome gasped with the shock of it. "The second..."

"Is none of your business, old woman."

Sesshomaru stood in the door, he did not look at Ren.

"Sesshomaru-sama." Rin stood up and walked over to him.

"Do not mention anything more of this matter... the past did not include you and the future does not either... Rin." But she didn't follow like she knew he wanted her to.

"Is it true?" Sesshomaru stopped and looked back, if not just for Rin. "What if this girl is her? What if..."

"Rin. The woman I once took is long since dead... Let her memory stay where it belongs." Rin could not argue with him with him having said that and they both left leaving Kagome and Kaede to their own thoughts.

"Is this all true? I'm I dead then?" Ren looked sideways from under the covers. "Am I just some reincarnation? Am I not even myself?" Kagome understood completely what was going on. Ren would have to learn to coup with the idea that she might actually be someone else and herself all in the same breath. "I feel bad for him. Sesshomaru. Because with a personality like that it's amazing he had a wife to begin with..." Ren began to cry then and she didn't stop until she had exhausted herself to sleep. By then the night had come and Rin and Kagome had both taken residence in the hut with the girl who might be Sesshomaru's wife reincarnate.


	4. The Soul that Cries Out

Rin had followed Sesshomaru in silence that night. This was a silence she was not used to, this was different than him simply not speaking.

"Rin." She stopped and looked down at the ground. She did not want to see his face. She had disappointed him. "These things... are no longer important. I have made due with the life I have now." He turned to her and sighed. "I will tell you something... something I will let you know... When I first saw you, I saw my daughter in you. As I got to know you, I realized how similar some of the things you both did and even said... even your names." He fell silent again. What he did not say was this.

_And when I tore through hell to find you, bring you back, I searched outwardly for whatever might have remained of my wife and children. I had found nothing. Not then and not before. I found no body. Only the sword left behind, useless as it was, for me to find. I couldn't save any of them. I never saw her again... Jina, Rem... even the boy Kohaku who died no more than a week later... He had aged so quickly... I could do nothing for him..._

"And Kohaku?" He sighed again and recalled the boy who walked into hell with him. The demon hunter's brother.

"Yes, even Kohaku, for a short time. Maybe if just your names, they all are so similar... But this woman..."

"It's her." Sesshomaru looked at Rin strangely then.

"Rin..."

"It is. A daughter lost first and then I come along. Then Kohaku and now Ren. Don't you see?" For the first time since he found her dead, he actually managed to look at Rin with pity in his eyes.

"You are seeing into this too much."

"And you are outright ignoring it!" Rin had never once yelled at him. This was new for them both. "Give her some time. She might be just like Kikyo and Kagome." All she wanted was him to be happy. Like he had made her, Like InuYasha and Miroku made Kagome and Sango... He deserved it. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach... This girl was special.

"She is just a human girl with an uncanny resemblance. A few hundred years is bound to see to at least one look alike, Rin." She couldn't believe he was being so stubborn.

"May I go back now, Sesshomaru-sama?" He looked at her surprised and he ignored the hurt her words gave him. She had never asked to leave his side before.

"Yes." He could say nothing to make her stay. Not if she wished to leave so much... That was just the way of the world as it seemed. Nothing stayed by him forever.

.

When then sun rose the next day it raised bright and clear skied. The residence inside the small village by the bone eaters well was not so quiet. Not in the slightest.

"You want me to believe what!?" Ren was standing in the corner, half dressed in miko clothes and ready to swing. "We're in Japan, but not sure when?! Are you out of your minds?" Ren eyed InuYasha and he glared right back. He knew she was going to run for it. Again. She'd already done it before and this was just another explosion of the one an hour ago.

"Please, let me explain. InuYasha please..." He made a stance at the door as if he were going to football tackle her and Ren decided to not even bother.

She hopped out the window.

"You're all insane." And she began running

"Please wait Ren-sama!" Rin chased her out the door and InuYasha sat perched on the window sill.

"The chase is on." Just as he pounced though, Kagome put an end to it.

"Sit! She is not wild game, InuYasha. She's a person. A frightened person." Kagome left InuYasha half buried in the dirt.

"Don't come anywhere near me! Y-you freaks!" Ren ran faster than she had ever tried to in school. This hadn't been her first attempt at escape. Not since they tried to feed her this reincarnation and wife crap. "I have to get out of here... I have to go home." Ren stopped and hid behind a tree.

"And what are you doing, you human pest?" Ren spun around and looked a little green toad-like thing straight in the face. He looked right back at her and reached a hand out to touch her and she stayed kneeling stunned for long enough it to gasp.

She screamed. And ran some more.

"Hey, get back here!" The little toad talked and chased her as best he could.

"Oh my God, get the hell away from me! If you don't leave me alone I swear I am going to kill you! What is wrong with this place!?" Ren stopped breathless and she watched while the toad crept up slowly to her. He looked at her from the left and then the right with his hands up so show he meant no harm. She wasn't buying it.

"Rem?..." 

_You can't be serious!_

"NO! I am Ren! Kusabana Ren! Teenager and school student with crappy grades. I am not some guys dead wife, I am not a mother from a distant past and I do not know why I am talking to a freaking TOAD!" She ran up, pulled her leg back to punt the little thing as far as it would go.

Her leg never made contact and she was tossed backwards. When she got up she glared and snapped. The little part in one's brain the controls self-control broke in two.

"Sesshomaru!" She couldn't take it anymore. Not this place, not this time and she was sure as hell not taking this crap from 'him' now. He began to walk away, but she called after him.

"Stop!" He listened, stopped and waited. As she stalked up to him she called his name once more and slowly he turned to face her. Her hand raised to strike his face for some kind of retribution that she couldn't begin to explain.

_It's your fault they think I am your wife! Tell them! Tell them I am not this woman!_

The hit never landed.

In his hand her arm twisted to free itself and they both glared at one another... Until she stopped suddenly. The color drained from her face and she stopped resisting.

"S-Sessho..." Her voice caught in her throat and she made a choking sound and then another. Before him her eyes dilated and he could feel her growing weaker under him. The choking sound turned into gagging.

"You are nothing special... only human." He barely finished his words. He had intended to toss her backwards again until he realized his hand which gripped her arm, his claw, had pierced flesh. Ren's eyes fluttered; unfocused and her head tilted forward and hung there. She remain upright only because he still held her arm while her hair hung about her face in long lengths.

"Sesshomaru!" Kagome shouted at Sesshomaru and then at InuYasha who tried to stop her from coming any closer.

Ren gagged a bit more as her throat closed up and air ceased to make its way into her lungs. Her fingers twitched weakly. He moved to pull her away from him and the long, straight hair that was not the same, the eyes that held a different hue, the slight height difference that marked her as different no longer mattered.

Blazing in gold on the middle of her forehead was the mark of the sun goddess, Amaterasu.

"Rem." She risked everything then and raised her hand to his shirt and pulled with all she could. It was barely enough strength to wrinkle a tissue, but it had been enough. Sesshomaru bent over to listen to that last thing she was to end up saying.

"No..." He pulled away and the cognitive powers she had mustered failed and she finally became a dead weight.

"REN!" Kagome was crying and Rin had stopped just short of Sesshomaru.

"Sesshomaru-sama..." He said nothing to her. Instead he took Ren and held her tightly in his arms and disappeared.

"SESSHOMARU!" InuYasha's voice echoed.

Miles away, in a body of water that had once saved the life of his wife and then later still, retained the memory of InuYasha's reincarnated love, Ren sank below the water line. The water shone and he ignored the burns it had left on his hands when he had placed her in the water.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.


	5. My Name is Kusabana Ren!

Ren woke and water flew. It arched high as she sat forward out of the water coughing and hacking. She failed a few times to stand up from the water and ended up kneeling in the waist deep water to cough the last dredges of water from her lungs.

When she thought she was good enough to stand she rose on shaking legs and took a step towards the water's edge. She didn't take a second.

"What do you want from me?" Her mind focused instantly. Her body ignored the chill creeping across her skin from the wind and stared; Ready to run, fight, kick and scream if he came any closer to her.

His reply was silence. He was not awake.

Slowly so as to make as little noise as possible, Ren stepped out form the water. She clamped down her willpower around her body's insistent need to shiver and bent down to make sure he was in fact sleeping.

She remained at least 10 feet from him at all times as she debated just out right running or trying to take his weapon. If Sesshomaru was anything like InuYasha he _would _catch her, but he wouldn't do much without a weapon...

She remembered the way he had spoken to her. About being human. And then the sudden pain and numbness followed by his hand... his nails digging into her arm... She glanced at his hands and realized they were burned and violently red. His back was resting against the side of a giant rock and he seemed completely indifferent to the entire world.

"I am not Rem..." She turned to leave.

"No. You are not..." She spun and slipped on the rocks she had soaked getting out of the water. Sesshomaru rested still, but he no longer slept. Ren wondered if he had been faking it.

Sesshomaru opened his eyes and looked at her; she backed away further into the water.

"I do not plan to harm you." His eyes never left her face.

"It didn't stop you before." He stopped eyeing the space above her brow which had shone like the sun and glared into her eyes.

"No. It hadn't." Almost as if the quiet of the world was too much, he stood and she backed away further. _She is too similar. She reprimands me as if I were no threat, but she is a human... does she not know what I am? How easily I could destroy her?_

"How did you hurt yourself?" He did not need to see his hands to know they were burned most unpleasantly. Not to mention she just wanted to know how to hurt him… he could see it in her eyes.

"The water you stand in is pure... Being a demon, it burns me." She glanced around her and he could see she didn't believe him. It was no matter.

"Why did you do this? Why did you burn yourself?" She lowered herself into the water despite the cold.

"Believe what you may... that soul inside of you is as the priestess in the village said. You are yourself, but you were once another..." The swirl of emotions was staggering. Rage, hatred, sorrow, defeat, confusion, solitude and fear were stronger than almost anything he had felt before.

"And." She waited in the water that she thought protected her perfectly; impregnably.

"I do not have to answer a human. No matter the soul inside of you." He turned and walked away. He had had enough of this entire situation. A week of guarding this body, this soul and for what? What had he expected?

"Wait! Don't leave me here!" She didn't move from the water.

"I will not stay here and I will not come in to get you forcibly." The water around her rippled as she tilted her head back to the sky and fought back another round of tears. Her breath came in forced and controlled as she tried to master herself.

"You don't want to kill me, otherwise you'd have done so... you don't want to hurt me, otherwise why bring me here to heal... what do you want from me?" She said that as she ran her fingers through her hair and dropped her face from the stars above.

"I do not know."

"Ok... good enough... can you show me the way home?" His brain stuttered for a moment... If this was the reincarnation of Rem, would the Well remain open to admit her where she didn't belong?

"If the way is open. I will show you." It was the least he could do. He couldn't say no to her. It disturbed his mind beyond anything else, but she was afraid. And it wounded him.

Ren stood and stepped out from the water slowly.

"InuYasha said there were things in the forest that were dangerous... what is out here?" Sesshomaru glanced at her soaking wet, disheveled self and turned away.

"Demons." He could almost hear the thought process kick in.

"You said you were a demon." It wasn't a question so he didn't answer. "This is ancient Japan... this is my past...Did you know that demons don't exist in the future?"

"Impossible." _The strongest being on the planet does not simply cease to exist. Not when the weak form that is human continues._

Ren's mental reserve emptied at that very moment.

"Do I look like I am in a place to lie to you? Do you think of all the things I have going wrong in my life right now that lying to you is my top priority?" He looked back at her. She didn't look like she was lying. "Do you think that being lost in some weird place, that's not mine, with demons and reincarnations and weird boys that have the stupidest names ever all the while being forced into this place because... because." He watched a part of her break then. The energy behind it was like a physical blow to any that could feel it. "Those people! Those people!..." She started to scream. Not at him or any one in particular, but just because she could. "They tried to touch me!" She looked at him and she was furious. Against his own will, he was just as furious. "They dropped me down a well and now I can't go home! I'm alone here and I can't go home!... I just want to go home!" She cried in a way Rem never could allow herself to; Uninhibited. Ren leaned into a tree and slid down the side taking bark along with her. When she reached the bottom she curled her legs into herself and wrapped her arms around them. The tears were half sorrow and half rage.

Either way they were violent and strong. Sesshomaru had no choice, but to wait while Ren's world slowly pieced it-self back together enough for her to regain composure. He would send this girl back through the well not for her sake, but for his own. This girl was a weakness in him and anytime he had allowed weaknesses into his life, they had all died.


	6. The Things That Change

They had not made it far from the body of water before the girl had begun to shiver in the cold. Naturally Sesshomaru stopped and built a fire that he had no use for and Ren moved as close to the fire as she could without catching aflame.

"What kind of demon are you?" She never took her eyes off of the fire. The sense of loss coming from the girl was almost staggering.

"Inu Youkai."

"What other kind of demons are there?" Her tone sounded empty and vacant.

"There are many kinds."

"You don't talk a lot, do you?" She pulled her eyes away long enough to give him a passing glance and went back to the fire.

"I have been told so before." It didn't matter what the girl seemed to ask, but he felt required…. Obligated to answer.

"What happened to your wife?" She 'asked', but it was no question. It was such a blatant question, but it had the first hint of feeling since he'd almost killed her.

"It is none of your concern. I don't listen to the demands of humans."

"Was she human? Like InuYasha said? What is with the girl Rin?" She fired off a thousand questions and each one delved a little further in the past he was not willing to look back on.

"Enough…. Jaken. Watch her." Ren looked up and jumped half out of her skin.

"It's that fricken toad! The talking toad!" She pointed and shouted while Sesshomaru left her behind. Jaken strolled out from behind the tree line breathing heavy and stumbling.

"I am not a toad! You silly human child!" She laughed and pointed her finger at him.

"If you're not a toad then what the hell are you?" He walked over to the fire and rubbed his hands together.

"I am a demon!" She laughed so hard she had to double over.

"A toad demon!... wow… demons can get really ugly looking…" She walked over and plucked at his shirt and skin.

"Unhand me human child!" He swatted at her and stepped back. She took his staff when he tried to smack her with it.

"Y-You!" She stuck her tongue out as he pointed at the stick in her hands.

"M-me!" She mocked his stutter and held the stick above her head while he jumped trying to reach it.

"Give that back right this instant!" She grinned and bent a bit to see him better.

"What do you say?!" She chanted while poking at the female face.

"You stupid girl! You don't know anything."

"You don't' think I don't know that!?" She looked away and shook her head slightly in agitation; the fun in her was suddenly gone. Silence permeated the area around the fire and Jaken picked up the staff she had dropped "… Do I look that much like her?" Jaken paused and weighed his answer carefully. She looked at him directly and sat down with her knees folded under her.

"Yes… and no." He sighed and sat down in her abandoned seat by the fire.

"What is similar?" She didn't know what it was, but this whole Rem thing made her head hurt and her chest ache. Jaken ignored her while he called into memory the image of Rem.

"Rem was shorter… not so white. Her hair was wavy and… she had a temper. And she never cried and she always addressed people as was fit." He turned and shouted a bit at her. It wasn't her fault, but Jaken had loved Rem. She had been important to him as well. "She always made sure to call My Lord by Sesshomaru-sama and I was always Master Jaken. She had respect!" She looked away from Jaken and frowned.

"I'm sorry... but that could be anyone... I might not be her!" Jaken remained quiet for a moment longer, his head looking at the fire like she had.

"No… you couldn't. I could mistake you, InuYasha could, maybe even a few others… but not him. Not Lord Sesshomaru… She… she was unforgettable…. and some of the things you do... overlap with what she did… things you do… that cannot be mistaken. You argue like her…" Jaken stopped. "But that is just me. I could be wrong…" He got up and walked behind a tree and disappeared from sight.

"Master Jaken…." She did it not because she believed him. She did it because he had been kind; in his own way. It was clear whatever Rem had been to him, he had cared. Rem had been loved.

"And Sesshomaru-sama..." From the dead silence of the forest, Ren's words floated between the trees where Jaken sat. He held his head in his hands and battled the tears from behind his eyes.

Further off Sesshomaru paused with closed eyes with the exact tone of his name said on the lips of someone who was not Rem.


	7. And The Things That Did Not

The sun rose and Ren rolled over onto her side. And onto a rock.

"Gah..." She picked it up and lobbed it away and hit Jaken in the process.

"That is no way to wake people in the morning!" Ren took in a deep breath and rose.

"I'm sorry... Master Jaken." He tripped forward and landed on the shoe clad foot of Sesshomaru. "Sesshomaru...-sama." She didn't look at him. It was too awkward to look at him. Not to mention in the light he was way more attractive than she had previously thought.

He was gorgeous.

"I have to beg a favour..." Ren managed a quick glance at him and his very unimpressed looking face and continued. "Can you take me home? I-I want to go home. I want to try." When she looked up again Sesshomaru had turned and was walking away.

"My Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken chased after him and Ren followed Jaken, but when an hour passed in silence, she forced conversation.

"How far are we from the Well, Master Jaken?" She enforced the use of 'master' and it came out sounding odd. Jaken sighed and shook his head.

"We have traveled a far distance from the Well and Forest of InuYasha... It will take many days to get back." She gawked at him.

"But how did we get here so quickly? I would have died if it had taken 'many' days to get me anywhere!" Jaken averted his eyes and scurried to Sesshomaru. He ended up walking past him though after Sesshomaru stopped.

"I will take you back to the village and the Well, but you will cease the incessant questions."

Ren looked to her left and right and realized she was in the middle of nowhere. Otherwise she would have just told him off... She wanted to still, but nodded her head in agreement never-the-less... until another hour passed... She was afraid to ask if they had any food, but she was starving and she had last eaten in the Village before the incident with Sesshomaru.

_I am not complacent... Her talk irks me to no end, but her silence makes me more so._

His thoughts ended when the sounds of screaming echoed in the distance. Even Ren could hear them and she instinctively put Sesshomaru between her and the sound. He could tell from the look on her face that she had never witnessed death and as they drew closer, it was positive that she had never seen death.

The first sight of blood brought her to a stop and she turned away and threw-up nothing but bile. She'd not eaten in a long time. It had been years between Rem and Rin and again so with Rin and this girl. Food was required for humans.

"You have not eaten anything. Why did you not say anything?" He looked down at her and she heaved again.

"You told me not to speak..." She got up and ran to the out-skirts of the village where she dropped to the ground and heaved more. Jaken stopped behind Ren and reached for her and stopped. With Ren's face it was difficult for Jaken to separate this girl and her actions.

"May we go around... around this... this? Please?" Jaken finally rested a hand on her shoulder and she glanced at Sesshomaru from behind dishevelled hair. The looked she gave was startling. _She flips between herself and Rem without pause..._

"I will allow this. For now we will stop. Jaken, find something for the girl to eat." Jaken was gone in an instant leaving Sesshomaru alone with the reincarnation.

"How can you stand it?" She looked back at the village, it had been decimated by a demon clearly, but she had not seen. Perhaps she was better off not having seen.

"Blood is nothing. You are simply a human, but even your kind face blood without taking ill." She delved into some memory in her head and shivered. Suddenly the breeze shifted and brought the sounds of short stubby feet running and her head turned even before Jaken came running from back the way he'd came.

"Lord Sesshomaru! Lord Sesshomaru!" Men chased Jaken and stopped when they saw Sesshomaru.

"Look, it's the demon!" They pointed and shouted while their weapons lowered for attack. "And it's taken a human!" Ren turned and spoke before thinking.

"I haven't been taken by anyone. You are mistaken. Sesshomaru didn't do anything wrong." The armed men heard very little of what she said.

"She's been put under a spell! She defends the demon!"

"W-No..."

"Enough. They will not heed advice. Even if it were wise." Sesshomaru raised a hand and a faint green glow shone from his fingers. Despite that, Ren got up and again stepped behind Sesshomaru.

_Rem would never have hidden behind me. Rem would have fought. Rem was careless. She never once relied on me for her safety._

_._

In a flash, screams erupted and Ren bent down and covered her ears. Less than a minute ticked by and the end of the noise made her gag again. She was apt if anything else. She knew what had transpired.

"Lord Sesshomaru has dealt with the humans." She looked up from the grass at her feet and looked at Sesshomaru. His one hand was covered in blood right up to his wrist. In reaction she grabbed her chest as if pained and looked away.

"Did you have to do that?! Did you have to kill them?! They were just people! Confused and afraid!" Now she glared at him. He was so strong and he killed them all. She had never been seen someone kill or be killed... to have it done for something to small... something so trivial.

"They meant to kill you simply for being with a demon. Do you still want to feign sorrow for these humans?" His tone was void of emotion. That was more than fine with Ren though because she had enough for the both of them.

"You! You act like you are so much better than they are! Yet you kill just as easily! Just as mercilessly. You think us weaker and simple and yet you walk in their shoes!" Jaken came running up to Ren to try and cover her mouth and failed for she stood up and he was unable to reach her then. "You don't think past your own intentions! You are mimicking man, you grow strong in fear of weakness, and you kill to prove your strength! You are not better than humans... I was so very wrong to think you better simply because you are a demon." The final word tore out of her and she was still glaring. Sesshomaru's eyes had gone from normal white to crimson red then. "Go on. Kill me. I spoke ill of you! I said things that were harsh. Act the human Sesshomaru! Take me out! It least in my world I would have been taken advantage of because they wanting something... You would kill me now for less." She drowned out the last dredges of human fear that threatened to make her cry, scream or worse, beg. Instead she walked up to Sesshomaru and stopped well within arm's reach.

A pulse rippled invisible from human sight and echoed from Ren's body. A dull gleam fell over her eyes and the mark that had once faded on her head gleamed bright once again.

"You will rot in hell for your false punishments. _You_ are a demon." Sesshomaru backed away from her stunned. Her voice was Ren, but her words were not.

"Rem." The pulse rippled again; violently.

Rem had once admonished the dying soul of the Lord of the South in this manner. Word for word she had banished his final breath in those words... and not hours later she had admonished Sesshomaru-himself for being as weak as a human for his poison had not killed her when he had meant it to. _They are too similar. These things that they do._

The pulse stopped moving away from Ren's body and shivered in the air. It hovered with a high pitched note on the air before returning back to Ren's body. The slam knocked her off her feet and onto the ground.

She did not get up again.

"My Lord Sesshomaru! Lord Sesshomaru! W-what was that girl thinking? To speak so freely and untruly about you. She knows nothing! The nerve!..."

"Silence Jaken. The words from her voice were hers to begin with as well as her actions... yet it was the soul that spoke out in the end." Sesshomaru stepped over to Ren's side and looked down at her. In the fall her hair has become tangled on the ground. It looked wavy as Rem's hair had once been.

"Could it be that the soul recognized you, my lord?" He continued to stare at Ren's face as the sun marking reverted back into flesh.

"Yes and no. Her soul recalled a moment in time and instead of seeing me as the demon that had spent decades by her side, my image overlapped with another. The man she slew when first we met, The Lord of the South at the time and the man that killed her family in thoughtless, blameless rage; a man she despised." Jaken opened his mouth and said nothing. Ren's soul had seen that she had wounded Sesshomaru in a way that no one alive could.

In a way on Rem could.

His heart and pride.


	8. When The Soul Weakens, It Weeps

The room was large, furnished and the door was closed.

_Where am I? _

She ignored the western bed, the painted walls and ran straight for the door. She smashed up against it and yanked on the brass handle; it wouldn't move.

She spun around and saw the room had no other door and only one large window.

She panicked.

"Oh my god..." _I'm trapped._

The rhyme, reason, who and what's didn't matter. The butterfly in her stomach fluttered madly then paused. She eyed the window like a lover betrayed. She walked up to it and it opened with a flourish of dust.

"No..." A three story drop loomed under her and fear seeped into her skin, Unbridled, sweat inducing fear. _I'm trapped._

She looked back on the room with searching eyes now. All devouring and oddly collected. The room explained what she had feared.

_Someone planned this... they knew I would try to escape right away..._

No sheets lay in tangles on the bed where she'd woken; no hangings on the wall aside from the gossamer curtains. No wire to pick a lock, hard object to break a lock... nothing.

Nothing.

_Jaken... Sesshomaru._

"Jaken!? Sesshomaru-sama!?... Anyone?!" She called out fighting primal instincts. She was half afraid Sesshomaru and Jaken wouldn't come and half afraid that something _else_ would.

The silence was broken by soft footsteps. She could imagine clouds against a mountain sounding this quiet and as the steps stopped in front of her door she backed away.

The door unlocked and she kept moving. The door opened a crack and she was still moving. Her body told her to move.

She backed away as far as she could when Sesshomaru stepped inside the threshold.

_You are a fool Ren..._

She twisted and ran. She felt the smoothed polish that only ages could make on wood as her foot slid over the third story balcony railing. Her second foot vaulted over and her waist twisted before her hands let go altogether.

.

_They are impossibly similar... no... This girl is more reckless if possible!_

Sesshomaru read the thoughts pass over Ren's face as clearly as if she had spoken her mind.

_Even she would do this thing..._

She bolted for the window, but very much unlike Rem who weighed her option and tried to drop down and make shift ropes, this girl... Instead she gripped the ledge and heaved herself over the edge. No hesitation.

He hadn't even realized he had moved to stop her until she swung from side to side by the arm. Her hand clenched while his hand about her wrist.

"You would have jumped. Why is it that you fear me?" That had not been what I had wished to say. The question came unbidden and her face again explained everything. In her eyes I saw the reflection of a fool.

"Y-You dare ask me such a... You near killed me!" His memory was not lacking in its normal faculties and recalled rather vividly the experience.

"Would you still not have fear of me had I not?" He pulled her up to his eye level, but did not bring her within the protection of the balcony. Hanging she would remain until he was so incline as to let her in, despite that he watched in growing agitation as she actually paused and thought before speaking.

He learned she was abrasively honest in that moment.

"Probably not." Just as Rem... Blatant like Rem and honest as Rin.

"Why?" _Do I really care to listen to the answer of this human girl?_

"Can you pull me in, please?" She was having trouble holding her own weight without it hurting at this point. A point he decided to ignore.

"Answer my question." He was amused yet again, by the honesty her mouth portrayed. Only her face seemed to be more honest, if possible.

"Say my name." _She is testing me! This child that means nothing, she dares demand of me. And yet she knows very well that what she does angers me... Why does she do this thing? What drives her in her motives?_

His hand tightened around her wrist and he felt the tendons shift under the skin. Her face betrayed the pain.

"Do not think to make demands of me human-child. Answer my question." She looked at Sesshomaru in a way no human really had. He had seen rage, hate, love, sprite and loath. What he received from her then was simple and clean.

Indifference and a hidden knowledge he had no access to. She knew something and she also knew that he could see it, but knew not what it was.

"Drop me then." No hesitation.

Sesshomaru tossed her inside and smothered the need to give her a reason to fear him. And yet all the while it became clear this argument was already won. In her favor.

_This child..._

Should he harm her she would indeed fear him and she would have the ammunition to wage a wordy war about his 'human' tendencies... and if he didn't... she was prove about his inability to lay harm to her person.

In her lies Rem's soul.

"Ren." She was startled out of whatever moment she had been in and back into reality.

"I, I just wouldn't have been afraid... is all." He had her now. He could smell it on the air. The smell the heart makes when it is close to breaking. To betraying the body.

"Why?" He stalked over to her and she scurried backwards, but never moved her eyes from him.

"What does it matter?!" She shouted and a small part of her previous confidence returned. Sesshomaru was becoming extremely frustrated with the effort of dealing with her.

"Why do you insist on making things difficult, child?" A mental wall shot up between them and he was no longer in a place to cow her.

"Because you are being an idiot! Be menacing, be scary and be abusive in nature. That's fine, I have an entire life of having lived under those conditions. If something doesn't fit into the shape of the world you made around yourself it has to be destroyed. It that it? Well guess what!? I am human, I am a child and I am weak and lost and I'll be damned if some demon, man, person or anything else is going to dictate to me! So the next time you think you can force me to say anything, do anything just remember this. I'm just being as stubborn and childish as you!"

She was standing by the end of her rant and the air was charged with her anger. Her body had begun to pulse again as some words Rem had also used in arguments ushered from her lips. The mark on her head had not come forth, but it was glowing just below the skin.

_Her soul is reaching out... It recognizes situations and people, but cannot place them. The soul is as lost as the girl..._

The ripples pushed up against his skin and he could _feel _Rem. Like her fingers were plucking at his clothes... he took a step forwards as his skin remembered the things that where Rem. Until a gentle finger became a sudden shove and he stepped back.

His mind refocused and he noticed he had closed the distance between him and Ren by half... and she was finally afraid of him, but it did not please him. The smell on her was the scent she had worn when he found her broken and wounded in the Forest of InuYasha by the Well that bridged worlds.


	9. Soul Breaking

Fear was something Sesshomaru was well used too. The fear of others towards him was a constant. Only a few choice people had not had fear of him directly... InuYasha, his half-brother, had no fear of him, but he had feared for the life of the priestess re-born... Rin had feared aspects of him, but those had all faded in so short a time is was most curious.

Rem had been the same. If anything, she had not feared him as the other had. She had fear of his temper, his option, his rages and later his love, but never towards his person. She was afraid _for_ him...

_A foolish notion..._ But the thought had already struck him. The woman, no, the soul of her had already once despised him as she over-lapped his image with the lord of the south and now it out right rejected him in fear for the mindset of the living body.

"Ren." He lowered to a bent knee and tried to catch her eye, but the damage was done. She was inside herself in a place he could not reach. The scent of fear and damage washed over him and angered him, but not towards her. She had reasons to be afraid.

_Both Rem and Ren have had their battles and anguish. Both have woken from pained dreams and rancid fears and both can turn their emotions like a switch of the tide to one extreme and the other. _

When she would not come out of her mind he stood and stepped out of the room. Jaken stood outside the door and for once was not called out of his own mind to pester Sesshomaru. He watched Ren curled on the ground staring at the grains in the wood floor. Sesshomaru could smell the scents from him as well. Confusion, fear, love and concern. His little servant was lost in the riptide of his own thoughts as Ren was.

_I must do everything myself..._

After Rem's death Sesshomaru had taken to a main-land way of dressing. It had helped distance himself from the pain to Rem's demise in some small way. Although all that may have been true he had bought things that had never seen light of day since their purchase and inside the hidden room below the castle where once a useless Tenseiga rested, were those same clothes. He was grateful in the moment that they were not in fact native Japanese clothing, seeing Ren in clothes such as that would be odd, but the grab of a priestess did not suit her or his likings.

.

When he returned Jaken stood within the threshold of the room and had managed to removed Ren from herself. She still remained on the floor, but she was speaking again. Oddly enough the scent of fear did not return when she noticed him. Only confusion.

"Jaken. These are for her. I would see her out of those priestess clothes, they are not acceptable." Sesshomaru placed the wrapped up bundle on the sheet less bed and left to his room down the hall.

"Ren. Lord Sesshomaru would like you to change now." Jaken stood and waddled over to the clothes that had been set aside and shook them out. "These are from the mainland..." He held them out and she took them and eyed him.

"I can get dressed without you... these are simple enough to piece together." Jaken removed himself from the room and she walked over to the window again. Her hand touched the sun warmed railing and forced her mind on something other than the days' excitement so far.

_This is ridiculous. He doesn't even care! He acts to touch and cruel and when I try and move he is there to shadow me... It's my soul..._

She pulled at the white priestess garb over her heart and wondered if that was even where the soul resided.

"I am not Rem. I am Ren and you cannot make me do what you want." She said that and pushed away from the railing and closed the window before pulling the blinds closed. She might have been the only person in the world and she would have still closed the blinds for privacy. It was just odd to change in front of an open window.

.

When she had changed she made mental note of the difference of this world and hers. The clothes were styled differently and so much better in quality that the mass produced machine made clothes of her time. The colors even seemed brighter.

_This isn't Japanese though... Maybe I'm not in Japan after all._

The idea passed quickly enough when she thought on it. The residence spoke old Japanese and the clothes on her now where like Sesshomaru's. It was simply his preference.

_Women's clothes are not his preference. Pay attention. These were not for you. They were for his wife. _

She took them back off the moment she thought of it. She wasn't going to wear a strange woman's clothes. Same soul or no and sure enough as soon as she had changed back into the priestess pants Jaken had returned.

"Ren... What are you doing?" He scurried over to her and yanked on the pant leg.

"Hey, let go!" He yanked again.

"Lord Sesshomaru told you to change!"

"No! I won't wear clothes bought for some dead girl! You can't make me!" Jaken stepped away and eyed the clothes in a new light. He hadn't even noticed. He had taken the women's clothing for granted.

"They were bought after she had died... She never even knew of their existence... you have no fear of that."

_I can't catch a break!_

She looked at the now open door and of course Sesshomaru stood in the frame.

"Do you enjoy sneaking up on people?" She glared and picked up the pants she had already once removed. "You do it a lot. You sneak up on people and you show up at the least opportune moments. Have you nothing better to do?..." She said that and suddenly he was gone and standing next to her. She had started to move away, but he gripped the back of her neck and propelled her forward. "Let go of me!" He forced her to walk out the door and down the hall to another room.

The room was bright if not dusty and as all hell... dark wood, red walls and two pictures hung on the wall on either side of the door. One in white while the other was purple.

"These are the only two people in my life who mattered. You do not reside on the walls of my estate so stop being an insolently human and do as you are commanded." He released her and she shifted away from him while holding her neck. "You are an asshole." He turned his head and glared at her, not understanding the words, but knowing enough to know they were insults. "You know what? I don't' want your help and if you ever touch me again the first thing I will do is jump from some cliff and splatter everywhere just so you can't even have her soul, you creep!"

The room had grown so very cold then and time stuttered. Ren's body had begun to almost hum... the spirit so energized by her hatred that it made sound. Next the vibrations began as they had twice before. This time they were strong enough to make him brace himself. The glow on her body pulsed in time with the air and her hair fanned away from her as the sun emblem blazed in gold, copper, bronze and silver.

"Don't leave me just yet…. Stay with me…" Her eyes did not become dull, instead a small sliver of them changed into a hue Sesshomaru knew very well. "I am so sorry… for everything…" Her voice changed just slightly and it was enough, the girl was not Ren in this moment. "Sesshomaru... what are you doing?" He looked wide eyed as the body of another became, piece by piece, Rem. "You are killing this body and soul..." He didn't quite hear her.

"Rem." The girl smiled and he knew for sure. "What is happening?"

"You are confusing the body and the soul within. The body which is attached to this mind is bouncing back and forth between what was and what is. I am dead, Sesshomaru." He walked to her and held her so tightly and the pain in his chest was the mirror image.

"What happened to you? I could not find your body. I found Kohaku and brought him back... he died only a week later. I could not save you!" Tears ran down her face and onto him freely.

"I am not sure. But it was not hell, heaven or even death, yet... It was peaceful, even if you had not been there. The pain was little at that point, but for the pain in my heart... I have missed you." The pulsing air made it hard to hold on to Rem. It tried to push him away. "Sesshomaru, the body is calling back my soul... I cannot stay. Not like this." He almost wanted to tell her to try, but he knew what souls brought back did. What they were like. He had seen the same happen in his brother before.

"I have loved and missed you..." She pulled away to see his face and kissed him, his heart nearly breaking then.

"Sesshomaru?" He glanced at his wife and his love, her voice was changing back. "Do not forsake the girl..." Had Rem been alive he might had looked at her oddly, instead he could only give her the love she had commanded in life.

"My Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken held onto the door frame, fighting the push of souls coming from Rem.

"Master Jaken... You look well." Jaken stuttered and as the first tear pulled from his eye; he was blown out the door.

"L-let... go of...me..." Ren was fighting to get back and she was strong willed enough that it pushed the last remains of Rem aside. The humming in the air hit high notes and almost sang before the pulsing returned to the body. It slammed threw Sesshomaru and into Ren almost taking her out of his arms. The next knocked them both off their feet to the floor. He grit his teeth against the shock of the vibrations and Ren could only scream while he watched at close range.

"I will do as you have asked..." The words had been to Rem, but the effect had profound effects on Ren. As the last bits of soul returned to her body he released her and she shuttered on the ground, breathing heavily. Almost ten minutes passed in a silence neither seemed willing to break.

"You want to know why I don't fear you?" She continued to heave in breaths. "It's because of this soul... I know it. That and because you are really easy to look at... Has anyone ever told you that?" She looked at him and he marveled at the wonders the world held.

Ren's voice had returned, the emblem gone, Rem's soul subservient, but the sliver that had returned to the color of Rem's, remained. He didn't know what to do with what she had told him, but he nodded.

_She does not fear me because she believes me attractive?... Humans are odd creatures indeed. That fear can be overridden based on such a thing... _

He said that, but in his head it made a kind of sense. Rem had loved him and stayed, Rin had come back despite him telling her off and now this girl.

"Please change. We will stay here for a short time and then I will return you to the village and the Well." She nodded this time as Jaken crawled into the room.

"Master Jaken. It's good to see you..." She smiled weakly at him and his disheveled presence and he crawled up to her and took her hand while nodding. "Even if you look like a toad..." She grinned and closed her eyes and fell asleep.


	10. Sesshomaru's Inheritence

This office room had been cleaned out in a surprisingly quick fashion. Jaken was pushing himself to get it done so Sesshomaru could use it once more and had space between hisself and the girl at the other end of the hall.

"My Lord Sesshomaru, it is done." Sesshomaru passed Jaken and closed the door without thanks of any kind, it was just his way. Despite that Jaken remained in the hall not knowing what to do. The room had been all that was necessary, the estate needed not cleaning, they were not staying long, in the last 50 years if had been used only as storage and Sesshomaru himself had not returned to Jaken's knowledge.

"Jaken!" Jaken bowled over from the scream and Ren placed her hands on her hips. "It's nice to ignore people… I've been standing her trying to talk to you while you ignored me you little cretin." She picked Jaken up like a children's doll and carried him down the stairs with her. "Stop screeching. These stairs can't be easy for you, they are almost as tall as you…"

"That is not the point!" She put him down once they reached the bottom stair and nearly chewed his fist to silence his gasp.

_This girl now, in these clothes looks Rem's twin… like Rem herself… These clothes will only remind Sesshomaru of Rem more… I have to fix this._

He said that, but could think of nothing he could make her wear other that the soiled clothes from before and the priestess clothes Sesshomaru had already demanded gone… She could not wear Japanese clothes, mainlander's clothes or even men's clothes… Rem had done it all and in a short period of time…

Jaken's hand ran over his face… "Ren…? Ren!?" She was gone. He chased after the scent of her and found her running a finger down the kitchen counter before sneezing violently.

"How long do you expect me to stay here without dying? Look how dirty it is…" She eye balled cloth and looked out the window. "Bingo…" She tore off leaving Jaken to follow in her wake shouting.

"Where are you going?! You cannot leave the estate! REN!" She ran and grabbed a bucket lying about and kept going.

"Stop shouting Master Jaken. I don't know how long I'm going to be here, but if it's for more than a day you'll never get more than…a….." She sneezed again and nearly toppled over. "I'll never get more than two words out without sneezing… the dust makes me sick." She walked the rest of the way to the small pond and filled the bucket with water while batting her hair out of face. "You do…Yes you do. Ren walked up and plucked the staff of two faces from his hands while he shouted some more. "I am not deaf Master Jaken… Here." She gave it back minus the red ribbon she'd untied and pulled back her hair. "You see. I was not stealing or anything. Now hurry. We have duties…"

.

He watched her walk away and glared at the staff who had allowed a human to touch it.

"You like her, don't you?" He admonished the staff and chased Ren back into the kitchen. "What are you doing? Don't touch that!" Ren had started cleaning the counters and dusting away.

"Didn't you hear me before? I said this stuff will make me sick and you cannot do it all on your own little man. I'm helping, so lay off." She glared at him from her half bent waist and then straightened and tossed another stray cloth at him. "I said I was helping Master Jaken, not doing it all for you."

.

From the second level in the estate and at the top of the stairs Sesshomaru stood and stared. His eyes looked at the opposite wall, but saw through them as if they didn't exist at all.

_What do I do with this woman? I do not understand how a human from so many years ahead in history can just accept everything as she has… InuYasha's woman had done this as well. Women of the future are formidable creatures indeed… But why did she come here to begin with? What made the Well admit this girl… The girl, Kagome, had the Shikon Jewel, and had a part to play in the making of this time era. So what of this child?... I have not even begun to deal with her personality and already she is running this place. She has Jaken cleaning! She ignores commands, is demanding and yet she is only a woman._

His insides turned. Rem had also been a woman and he had given her every respect as his equal and in some ways she had been better than him.

_She does not fear me… because she thinks I am pretty…. I sound like a pet. This is foolish. Who ever heard of such a thing? Stupid humans.…. These thoughts are dangerous._

He fought his inner self when realizing his mind did not balk at the girl enjoying his presence because he was attractive to the eyes.

_You are being a fool. She is the reincarnation of Rem, not Rem herself… and yet Rem had come through. _

"Sesshomaru-sama! Listen, I'm sorry for being rude before and yelling and such, but you're being childish. Don't ignore me." His eyes snapped down the last flight to Ren standing covered in dust and dirt. Her hair was tied back with something with magical properties, but that was not the thing that made her presence affect him as it did.

_Even in clothes such as these she resembles Rem. The small difference in looks between them grows smaller as if this time era changes her. _

"Do not shout. It is not necessary to do so. I can hear you no matter where and how far you go." She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms in front of her.

"Then can you please come out of your head long enough to listen to me?" _She is too much like Rem… _"Jaken will notshow me where the cleaning closet is. If we must stay here for any period of time then I need to clean up a room or two…" _It is as if time is over lapping their lives together. _"… will you show me?" Sesshomaru snapped back and nodded before going through all of what she had said. He walked down the last flight and stopped next to her before turning his back and walking outside.

"Sesshomaru!" InuYasha stood on top the stone gate and shouted. "Where is the girl!? You kill her off and leave her to be eaten by demons or what?!" Kagome stood at ground level with a bow notched and ready to go.

"Kagome? Rin!" Ren ran passed Sesshomaru and InuYasha eyed the girl as if she was an impossibility. Kagome knew that look very well. He used it on her for months before he had come to terms with her not being Kikyo.

"You are safe!" Kagome and Ren hugged each other and Rin hung behind while staring at the estate and at Sesshomaru. "What happened? We didn't know if you made it so we came searching for you. Meoga told us about this place and so we came here on a complete whim." Ren slapped the topside of her hand and something small floated away. "Uh…. May I introduce Meoga the flee. He's a demon." Meoga jumped back onto Ren's hand and bowed.

"A pleasure. I was not sure we wound find anyone here, but here you are… May I ask how you survived the poisoning by Sesshomaru's hand?" Meoga shivered with the angered aura that was Sesshomaru.

"Oh… Um, Some water or pond in the mountains. It was… er… purified water? Either way I guess it had healing powers because I'm all better… oh yeah." Ren turned around and eyes Sesshomaru hands. They had returned to normal and she had not even noticed. _He is a demon then…_

"Could it be? The water you speak sounds like the water that once saved Kagome and the same water still that had saved the life of Rem before you both." Meoga muttered to himself. _So it was again because of her that I was saved. The water had Saved Rem, that's why he knew of it… But it had also saved Kagome._

"Rin, Kagome, InuYasha and Meoga. Would you like to stay for a bit? I am going to be and this place needs to be cleaned up and then some… eh…" She paused and turned around.

"I'm not staying here in HIS house. Not gonna happened." InuYasha crossed his arms and glared daggers at his brother.

"You were not invited little brother and your human woman is not either…"

"Oh My God. Listen to yourselves! You're so childish… if that's the way you are going to be then I will sleep outside, or is that what you planned from the beginning? There is more than enough room up there and it's not like you actually sleep Sesshomaru-sama… and what of Rin? Will you make her sleep out here on her own? To be defended by the likes of InuYasha?" Ren grinned inside her head. Even she knew well enough that between the two Rin and being protected by InuYasha was enough to get him to humble himself just enough. And she knew that he knew that was her mind set because he glared something fierce at her and stalked back inside the estate doors.

"Rin…" Ren took Rin's hand and they walked towards the door together.

"I never knew this place existed. We never came this way or anything…" Ren knew why, but she wasn't going to say anything. It wasn't her place and she had just made Sesshomaru extremely angry.

"Hey!" InuYasha gripped Ren's shoulder and turned her forcibly. Her reaction was to smash her palm into his face… Self-defence. "UH! W-What did you do that for?!" He shouted at her and pointed at his face.

"You scared me! Oh my, you just came and yanked on me, what was I supposed to do!? Don't do that to people!" She had started out with apologizing and ended with shouting at him.

"I just wanted to talk to you! Kagome?! Tell her?" Kagome shook her head.

"You deserved it. That's what you get for sneaking up on people." She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Oh, so he does that too does he?" Ren took Rin's hand again and walked her inside with InuYasha yelling more.

"W-What do you mean 'he does that too'? Hey!" Kagome passed InuYasha by and followed after Rin, Ren and Meoga.

"Master InuYasha. This place was where the lady Rem once lived, this was given to Sesshomaru from your father to watch over the Western lands, it may be that you learn something of him while here." InuYasha snorted and walked back towards the front gate.

"I'm not staying in his house. I'll watch and guard from here." He sat down and crossed his legs in agitation.

"Suit yourself Master InuYasha." And Meoga jumped off InuYasha and off towards the estate.

"Meoga! Huh… Stupid flee."


	11. The History of Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi

InuYasha sat outside the estate for hours, until Kagome in her displeasure dragged him in.

"The least you could do is be grateful... what a pain you are." She walked to the room that had been opened for their use and where Rin and Ren sat talking of things Kagome felt better spoken between only them.

"Would you look at this place? I can't believe father would have given him a place like this and Sesshomaru has only let it rot out... What a waste." InuYasha blew dust off of the stair railing and took to the steps rather than to the room.

"Where are you going InuYasha?" Kagome grabbed his sleeve and was pulled with him.

"I'm going to check this place out. It's weird that Sesshomaru would give up a strong hold like this..." He didn't say the rest of his thought. It wasn't wise while under Sesshomaru's nose.

"InuYasha. You would find it most beneficial to your health if you stayed on the main level." Sesshomaru stood guarding the next level of the estate from InuYasha.

"What do you have holed up in this place that you are actually standing guard of it?" Sesshomaru said nothing and glanced into the room with Rin and Ren. He was not pleased with the sight for some reason.

"You are a guest... do not make me ruin the remains of this place." The threat was unsaid, but understood. Snoop and be dealt with. As such Sesshomaru passed both InuYasha and Kagome with whom he gave an investigating look to before moving on.

"What was that for?" She stuck her arm into InuYasha's and he glance at Sesshomaru and Ren and somewhat understood.

"I'll explain later..."

Ren sat while Rin told tales of Sesshomaru from before her dropping through the Well.

"All of this, from him? I can barely get him to speak to me let alone do nice things..." She eyed her hands as if blood somehow stained them. Her mind had gone back to the village.

"Rin... I believe this is enough for now." Rin smiled and laced her hands together. She was a rather open girl and always spoke in favor of Sesshomaru, but this house; the estate, made her somewhat reserved.

"You saved her. You brought a human back with that sword. Can I see it? May I hold it?" She was never eager to speak with Sesshomaru, but in this moment you would have thought them to be companions. He touched the handle of the sword and pulled it form the sheath. It almost sang and it shone most curiously to Ren.

When she stood up she made sure nothing was on her hands before setting her hands, palm up to receive it. Rin watched as if she was seeing something she shouldn't be but stayed never the less.

The sword touched Ren's hand and shone with a pale light.

"What is it doing?" Sesshomaru said nothing and listened. He had his answer then, officially he had been searching for a sign to prove Ren was not whom all said she was, but the sword recognized her as well... and it was weeping. Sesshomaru would have taken the sword back then, but Ren had clasped the sword around her hands and tears ran down her face. She gripped the sword so tightly that her hand puckered against the blade and then blood ran down to the tip.

"Release the sword." InuYasha and Kagome had come back down and it was InuYasha who had spoken.

"It's so sad... so many people. But only a few were... were... I've lost them..." From somewhere in the estate the walls began to shake. The ground itself moaned and InuYasha grabbed Kagome and forced her out the door.

"Ren, give me back the Tenseiga." Sesshomaru gripped the sword, but it sparked and a ringing rent threw the air. "Rin, leave with Jaken." She needed not be told again and left as InuYasha returned.

"What is going on here? What is that smell?..." Sesshomaru noticed it as well and cared not to inform InuYasha that it was the smell of those who were dead. Rem, Jina, Kohaku... all of their scents mingled and surrounded Ren.

"The sword remembers… and it sympathizes with her. The sword is crying. Some part of her has been speaking with the sword on some level and it has finally spoken back."

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Ren looked up and then to InuYasha and back. "Who are these people? I can see me, but it's not me… it's her isn't it? This isn't right… but the boy… or is it you?" Her eyes glinted as the tears poured down her face. "The girl…" Ren reached out a hand to no one and something glittered as suddenly debris shot up from the ground.

"What the hell is that? No…" From the ground shot up a small gem. InuYasha almost thought it was the Shikon jewel, but it had been destroyed long ago and this gem had no evil inside it.

"This is one of three items the girl brought with her from the other world… I do not know what they are, but they have power in them." Sesshomaru eyed the gem as it landed in Ren's outstretched hand. The gem glowed and something flew out of its center and shot behind her and began taking form.

"Sesshomaru, I don't think that thing is a welcome visitor…" Sesshomaru needed not to be told again, but Ren seemed untouchable while the Tenseiga rested in her hands.

"Amaterasu…" The swirl of wind and black clouds settled into a human body before dispersing into air. "You have forgiven me then?" The man that came out of the gem walked around Ren and stooped to her face and paused. "Amaterasu? No… yet…" He touched Ren's head and the sun blazed on her head and he turned to look on Sesshomaru as if just seeing him for the first time.

"You." Sesshomaru did not know from where this man had come, but he was not normal. He smelled like the opposite of Ren in every way, right down to his heart. But he clearly hated and loved her; Whoever he was. "So I did die then… and yet… This is most interesting." As if interested in something amusing he began to laugh.

"Who are you and why are you here?" Sesshomaru was not impressed in the slightest.

"I? I am you… As she was Amaterasu and will be once more." To send the point home the man pulled his hair back from his head to reveal a moon symbol on his head. The mirror image to Sesshomaru's.

"You care to explain Sesshomaru?" InuYasha was just as confused as Sesshomaru, but he showed it so much more.

"This man you call Sesshomaru?... A very interesting derivative of my name. 'Killing perfection.' That is what made her hate me… I will explain everything now that Amaterasu has forgiven me. I am Tsukiyomi and I am married to this woman. Or I once was. Seems I recall her sealing my dead body inside that thing to rot… But here I am and here she is as well. You, Sesshomaru are my reincarnation. As this girl is Amaterasu. But you will have to forgive me. I will be forced to reclaim what is mine now."

The man struck with startling speed. Even for a demon. Sesshomaru moved out of the way and InuYasha didn't need to be told, this man, Tsukiyomi, was an enemy and very dangerous.

"Kagome! Get out of here! Take Rin! Sesshomaru, deal with him so I can get her out." He pointed his weapon at the previously imprisoned demon after screaming outside. "Because he's not going to let you take her." Tsukiyomi grinned and pulled a stray hair from Ren's face. She was still crying, but otherwise knew nothing of her surroundings.

"She still weeps so prettily. Does she still weep for almost everything? I wonder if Susanoo has felt the change yet?" Sesshomaru smothered the ingrained rage in him.

"Leave this place. You are not welcome." Tsukiyomi laughed again.

"But my love brought me back… and with your sword. I wonder where that sword of _hers_ is. I would like to keep that from Susanoo if all possible…" Tsukiyomi ignored Sesshomaru and InuYasha as if they were no obstacle at all until InuYasha tried to touch Ren.

"Fool! Do not touch her. She is a being far beyond your comprehension… Stupid creature. Only I am to touch her." The make the point clear he gripped the Tenseiga and removed it, unhindered, from Ren's hands.

His kiss also went unhindered.

The Tenseiga dropped from Tsukiyomi's hands and rang, but when Tsukiyomi touched the Gem it shocked him and shot him clean across the room. He laughed more when he stood.

"So her heart has not forgiven… I wonder…" He eyed both InuYasha and Sesshomaru. "Has she been happy? Has she lived a good life? Or has she been tormented all her days?" He grinned most evilly when Sesshomaru did not answer. "I see. I will explain before I kill you both. That gem is the physical form her heart took when she sealed me away in side it. She locked me away and as payment she was never allowed to be happy, just as what was in her heart, me, was not allowed to. It seems the gem grew confused with her affection for my reincarnation and set me free... You have done well to keep her close, but I will take over now." The man attacked again, but the ground shuttered again as Ren regained herself.

"Sesshomaru… InuYasha…? W-what…"

"Amaterasu… how have you been?" Ren turned a confused eye to Tsukiyomi.

"Who are you?" His grin only grew bigger.

"How perfect. I will take the mirror, the gem, sword and her then." Tsukiyomi took her by the waist and hoisted her up.

"Hey! Let go of me!" He laughed more and more.

"This is just great! She has no memories, powers, her mirror has not been used and is little more than human!"

"Let me go you creep!" He picked her up and swung in a circle with her in his hands, almost childlike. "What are you doing to me!?" He pulled her into him and kissed her again. She instantly rebuked and panic set in. She pulled her head away and smashed her head into his.

The room paused and her body began to pulse like before.

"Oh no… Not that right now." Tsukiyomi set her on her feet and pull one hand back, but before she could run away he slammed his palm into her chest and sent her flying outside.

Sesshomaru and InuYasha required no further reason to hold off attacking.


	12. The Heart of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu

Ren flew and both Rin and Kagome tried to catch her. All three landed in a painful heap as Sesshomaru and InuYasha crossed swords with the Tsukiyomi. Sesshomaru had unleashed the Bakusaiga while InuYasha drew the Tetseiga.

"Ren-san, Ren-san." Rin shook Ren while Kagome watched in confusion.

"He said, he was Tsukiyomi and she was Amaterasu... This doesn't look good." She had heard everything and she didn't like it at all.

History told the story of the God Izanagi who had birthed three children from his body. The God Tsukiyomi who ruled over the moon, Susanoo, God over storms and the Goddess Amaterasu, Goddess of the sun and generally over the entire universe. In an outrage after her brother, Tsukiyomi had killed a lesser god, Amaterasu swore never to look on him again. As it turns out she had sealed him away inside of her heart, never to been seen again. The gem was the representation of her heart. With the feelings of Rem's love for Sesshomaru, the reincarnation of Tsukiyomi himself, the seal broke, releasing Tsukiyomi's soul and being revived by the Tenseiga. The mirror housed the memories of Amaterasu is seemed and the sword... it wasn't clear, but it sounded extremely strong.

"InuYasha, be careful. He's not normal!" She couldn't just come out and say that Tsukiyomi was a god, but she had to warn him somehow. That this man was capable of unimaginable things.

"Yeah, I got it!" He shouted out to her and called used the Wind Scar. Trees flew and Sesshomaru fought directly with Tsukiyomi.

"Sesshomaru, you too!" She didn't want to tell him, and doubted he'd listen, but he was InuYasha's brother and well... this Tsukiyomi guy was dangerous.

The battle continued and InuYasha got tired with being almost ignored for his brother Sesshomaru.

"I'm right here buddy!" Tsukiyomi smiled and disappeared.

"I will deal with you first then." He reappeared from behind and flicked InuYasha in the back of the head. It sent InuYasha hurtling down to the ground and into a great billow of dirt and dust.

"InuYasha!" Kagome ran for him and he crawled out coughing.

"I'm fine. I'm fine..." She gasped as the dust cleared though and he looked at his hands in confusion. "Impossible!" He glared up and Tsukiyomi. "How the hell did you do that?!" The answer he got was just laughter. In the few seconds that he had been out of the fight, InuYasha had become human. His hair black despite it being the middle of the day. "What is going on here?" He touched his hair and grit his teeth. "This make no sense..." Kagome suddenly knew the reason why InuYasha had become human with that last attack.

"I understand! Tsukiyomi is the God of the Moon! When he touched you it must had seemed to your body that it was that dark faze when the sun is no more... and only the moon remains. He's taken your demon abilities!" InuYasha cursed and sheathed the now useless Tetseiga.

"He can do that?!" InuYasha didn't seem convinced, but with more and more time it made sense to Kagome. "I thought gods like that were only myth?!" Kagome thought so to until she came to a warring era Japan and met with demons and spirits...

"Ah, Kagome-san!" Rin shouted and Kagome ran back to her. "She's waking up again. How is that even possible? She was hit so hard!" Kagome didn't want to say it, but she did.

"It's because she isn't human..." Ren opened her eyes and rubbed her head and was no longer herself.

"Release me please." Rin let go and so did Kagome. "Tsukiyomi! How dare you!" The mainland clothes she had worn before burned away and white garments gathered in their place. "I banished you to death! How dare you come before me again!" The sun emblem shone almost blindingly and she paused. "Wait... This cannot be?" Sesshomaru set himself between Ren, Rin and the derange man claiming to be a god. "Sesshomaru..." He turned glanced at Ren with a face that made her straighten in shock. "Impossible..." She gripped her heart glared at Tsukiyomi. "What evil have you rough here?! This man is you! But..."

Tsukiyomi grinned and lowered to the ground and picked up the discarded gem.

"You my love set me free. Rather your reincarnation did. This is not your body, just as that, is not mine." He pointed to Sesshomaru who was almost human looking aside from the clothes and aura about him. He had no tell tale lines like Sesshomaru's had as a demon, but they could have passed for brothers. Both had the long white hair, Sesshomaru's was straight though while Tsukiyomi's came down in gentle waves, Tsukiyomi even had a gentler face, until Tsukiyomi smiled anyways.

"Return that to me." Tsukiyomi laughed and was about to crush it when the sparked and shot away and towards Amaterasu. It stopped halfway though and hovered, shaking. The ringing sound from before echoed and InuYasha screamed with the sound. Tsukiyomi dropped to his knees and clutched his ears.

"Stop it! You're hurting him." Amaterasu frowned. "Please bare with me. He cannot have that gem." She turned and outstretched her hand for the gem, but it shot towards Sesshomaru and hit him in the chest. Two other voices ripped from Amaterasu mouth.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" The gem pierced his chest and the wound healed over, Sesshomaru shuttered with the impact and stepped back with his hand over his chest. "I... I am being forced back... from my own body?!" Amaterasu looked at her brother and at Sesshomaru. "This cannot be." Tsukiyomi laughed as he always seemed to do.

"It's not your body anymore. It the girls... I'm going to find that mirror and break it to pieces that cannot be fixed, but I'm going to find Susanoo first. I think a reunion is in order." He looked up at the sky and disappeared in a flourish of black clouds.

"Sesshomaru." Amaterasu walked over to him and stopped. "Give me what you have stolen." Her hand reached out, but he didn't move.

"He didn't steal it! It chose him!" Kagome spoke up and Amaterasu turned a saddened look to her.

"You have your heart. It lies in the boy before you. My heart is no ones. I want it back." She turned once more and this time touched Sesshomaru. A spark forced her hand away and burns formed on her hand.

"My heart... has rejected me..." She eyed Sesshomaru with hate then. "So be it." She moved to strike him, but the same spark that forced her away from Sesshomaru now shocked her entire body. "S-Stop this!"

"The hearts inside of the Ren's body are forcing Amaterasu back. The love of one heart and the general wish for safety of the other is making the Goddess weak. She cannot overcome her own heart!" Meoga stood on Kagome's shoulder suddenly and she was picked up in InuYasha's fist.

"Meoga! Where were you?!" The flee demon cowered in InuYasha's palm.

"Never mind that just yet... Look!"

"Stop... this... I must stop him!" Amaterasu stepped away and a scream ripped from her throat, but it was Ren's voice. "Get... out... of my body! Leave these people alone!" A blast smothered the spirit of the sun goddess and Ren took complete possession once more of herself. The first thing she did was wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.

"That creep kissed me! He kissed me!" The sun mark remained on Ren's face, but the clothes that had been made of sunrays and reflections bled away. "Don't look at me!" She dropped to the ground and covered as much as she could of herself. A cloth lowered on her and she remained hidden under the blanket.

"Ren...?" Kagome touched Ren's back.

"What is happening to me!?" She pushed her head out from the blanket and began to cry. "What is wrong with me! The guy! The guy!" She continued shouting things over and over as the mental stress piled. "He tried to kidnap me! He's going to come back for me! I know it." InuYasha picked Ren up and the blanket fell back.

"Pervert!" Her hand peeled back and smacked him right across the face. "Oh!" His once black hair returned to white from before. His face on the other hand turned a bright shade of red.

"Oh, I get it! Because Amaterasu is the embodiment of the sun!"

"You think so?!" InuYasha screamed bloody murder. "I wasn't trying to peek! I have Kagome!" Kagome punched him in the face and InuYasha went over to a tree to sulk.

"Someone explain what is going on!" Rin came up and wrapped her arms around Ren and together they walked until Ren stopped in front of Sesshomaru. "Does it hurt?" She eyed his chest and looked away. "What was that thing?" Meoga jumped on Ren's shoulder and explained what little he knew.

"That was the heart of a goddess who had banished her own heart to seal her brother away. I can only assume it chose to stay with the Lord Sesshomaru because of the three of you, Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and him, only Sesshomaru had love to give it being that you also house the pass human spirit of Rem inside you." Ren looked down and at her hands before bowing.

"Thank you... I think you tried to protect me. I think you tried to fight for me and you... that thing is now in your chest... I'll try to find a way to get it back. Thank you..." She looked back at him and stare a moment at the moon emblem on his head before touching her own. "My head hurts... I need to go lay down." She walked passed him and passed the debris with Rin. Kagome and Meoga followed soon after and left Sesshomaru alone with InuYasha.

"That guy is bad news. I don't know what his deal is, but Ren doesn't like him around... What are you going to do?" Sesshomaru followed after the humans.

"I will kill him if he comes here again." InuYasha didn't follow him.

"What did you do with the mirror and sword?" Sesshomaru paused and a few fingers twitched in agitation.

"They are hidden and will remain so until I know what to do with such dangerous relics. I would take your woman and go. You are useless in a battle that makes you human." InuYasha said nothing, it was a pointless argument and Sesshomaru for once was right. How could he fight when his strength left him with the flick of a finger? And return just as easy...

"One last question Sesshomaru. What do you plan to do with the heart of a goddess? I don't know about you, but humans seem to need it to live. What will this do to Amaterasu, Ren and Rem?" Sesshomaru nodded and continued into his ruined estate.

.

When InuYasha finally came in, Ren had gone to sleep and Kagome was clearly searching her brains for whatever she knew of Tsukiyomi, Amaterasu and this still unseen other brother, Susanoo.


	13. The Price of Honesty

"So tell me what you know about this Tsukiyomi guy, Kagome." Kagome sighed knowing InuYasha was going to get lost as soon as she began.

"The story goes like this. The god Izanagi, birthed three children. Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and Susanoo. Amaterasu married Tsukiyomi, but after killing a lesser god she sealed him away. She also has issues with her other brother Susanoo to the point he tricked her and he was thrown from heaven. Later after being on earth he slayed a great snake demon, the Orochi, and from its tail came the sword Kusanagi... she later gave the sword, the mirror Yata no Kagami and jewel, Yasakami no Magatama to her son who lived as a normal man on earth. Each item was said to contain a virtue that she bestowed on her beloved son, the sword was valor, the mirror was wisdom and the gem was benevolence."

InuYasha scratched his head. "Ok, So what does all of this mean for Ren?" Kagome sighed and shook her head.

"I have no idea. All I know is Amaterasu's grandson was meant to make Japan peaceful and end all the warring..." Kagome stopped and paused in thought. "I wonder how all of this actually ends. Japan eventually becomes a peaceful place, but all we have in modern Japan is myths and stories. I don't know how this is going to end. And Sesshomaru being the reincarnation of Tsukiyomi... what does that mean for him?" She became quiet as the sleeping body of Ren shifted and settled once more.

"How accurate are these histories of yours woman?" Sesshomaru stood with Rin and Jaken at the other end of the room. This had been the first time that he had spoken out since all of this had begun.

"I don't know. And I do have a name you know... But our history doesn't even mention demons like your guys... demons don't even exist in modern Japan. They are all gone." Sesshomaru didn't seem to believe this.

"It's true. I've been there a few times. There is nothing but humans as far as the eye can see and the noise can smell..." That didn't help convince any more than Kagome had.

"Does this Tsukiyomi have a weakness that your history mentions?" Sesshomaru had taken an active role in the group staying in the wrecked room of his estate. Kagome swallowed her anger for him and continued. She almost felt bad for the guy. He'd lost his wife… and now the woman who carried that soul was being tormented. Not to mention her sorrow for the girl herself. She knew what it was like to be thrown into another time… and she only had Sesshomaru it seemed…

"Not really. It only says that she never looked at him again for when he moved so did she, that is the reason we have both day and night..." This did not please Sesshomaru in the slightest.

"Kagome... what can we do? What can we do for Ren... she is being torn apart. It was one thing alone with her competing with Rem-sama... but now this? Can the body handle all of this stress?" Rin ran her hand over Ren's hair and pulled a few tangles from her straight hair. Rin had no idea how to help the girl or Sesshomaru. This was painful for all of them.

"I don't know... I 've only had to deal with Kikyo and she had her own body... I can't imagine fighting inside myself... and one of those she's against is a goddess... We have to find that mirror and sword and you have to keep that gem safe, Sesshomaru." He nodded even if he didn't think it was needed advice. The thing was inside of his chest now, to take it would mean its forcible removal and he was not about to allow that.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Rin pulled her hand away and then placed it back after a moment. Ren did not move. "I've done all of this. If I hadn't come here, everything would be alright... it hurts..." Ren's hand moved to her chest... it had been assumed that now that the gem, the embodiment of Rem and Ren's heart, was now inside of Sesshomaru; that she was missing it. "I can feel it... something missing from me. I still feel pain, I can feel love still, but... something is missing."... She was quiet for a time and was thought have been asleep, but she spoke once more. "I would like to speak with Sesshomaru please. Alone..." InuYasha and Kagome didn't like this, but they left none the less.

.

"What do you want of me Ren?" She smiled and laughed a bit.

"You said my name..." Her smile faded. "She really loved you... did you know? I could hear her when that woman, when I tried to take the gem from you. She begged me to help you. She said it was her heart as much as mine and the goddess, but it was not fair to take it. She called out so strongly for you that I had no choice, but to listen. The goddess... is so confused. She thinks you are Tsukiyomi... because of the mark of the moon." Ren pulled herself up and sat straight. "And she wants to kill Tsukiyomi. It's not right, because it's not your fault! You didn't do these things to her! But I can feel her sadness. Tsukiyomi... he killed people, without a care or a second thought..." Ren grew silent and he knew where her mind had traveled. "I don't know what to do. She told me I could not go home... that this was my home and that was why the Well had let me through. Because this is where I belonged... Every one inside of me is fighting for something, but me. Rem wants to help keep you safe. Amaterasu wants to kill Tsukiyomi… and you... I just want to be me."

Sesshomaru walked over and did something unlike him that even he second guessed it. He knelt to her level and touched two fingers to her chest, where her heart should have been.

"This thing inside of me is not your heart. Your heart still resides with you. One that cares for the thoughts and feelings of others is not without their heart. I have promised to return you to your time. This changes nothing." He stood and walked away before the feeling in him turned sour.

_I have promised this girl things that I should not be. But I cannot do nothing… _

"Sesshomaru. If it wasn't for me thinking this is a piece of Rem coming through, I might have hugged you just now... Can I ask a favor? Can you kill that man? Tsukiyomi? I don't want to kill anyone, but..." She withheld with notable force to not weep. It was just a task that was beyond her. "He's evil. I could feel it when he looked at me and I could feel it when he touched me. It's still there, on the surface... on my skin." Ren rubbed her arms and the scent of defilement washed over her again. She grew angry and stood up. "I know that the woman you love is in here with me, but... can you get these people out of me!? I want to be myself! This is my life!" She walked over to Sesshomaru and almost glared at him before forcing her arms around him. Sesshomaru nearly forced her away, but he couldn't. "This is because I'm sorry. This is also for Rem and I know you hate this right now, but that is too bad... I needed to do this…" She pulled away and left without looking at him again. The scent of embarrassment drifted over everything in a heavy sheet and remained.

.

Inside his chest the gem pulsed ever so slightly.

.

He watched as Ren stopped outside in the night air and drew her arms around her. Tsukiyomi was supposed to be the God of the moon and tonight the moon was rather large and bright. He could only imagine what she thought about that.

.

"Sesshomaru… I have to talk to you." InuYasha parted from Kagome who went to Ren.

_Will I never have rest until I am done with all of this? Even InuYasha forces his presence on me…_

InuYasha stepped in line with his older brother and waited a moment. "Rem isn't coming back." Sesshomaru almost, almost snarled like an animal at that. "She can't be saved. Ren is right when she said this is her life... and I don't know where you hid the mirror and sword, but I can smell them around here somewhere and when I find them I'm going to destroy them, for her sake. She doesn't deserve to be going through this all. And the way that she looks at you sometimes... it's like you are the only one helping her. She looks to you for help... I don't know why, you did try to kill her before, but if you fail her. I'm going to finish you off like I should have years ago..." InuYasha walked away as Ren had and even stopped to glare at the moon.

"Master InuYasha has a point. Either way that man is coming for you. You have two things that he wants, the remainder of his soul and the gem. It is only a matter of time." Myoga fled before Sesshomaru could kill him.

_They all leave__..__. This, Tsukiyomi will die the next time he shows his face. I will kill him and send the girl home. She is nothing but trouble and it will rid me of InuYasha and his woman as well._

_._

Sesshomaru went to the room at the far end of the third floor, but found his self at the window never the less. He watched the human girl, Kagome and how she interacted with InuYasha. Their love was a curious thing. She forgave him his faults and he protected her as if without her he was nothing at all. Sesshomaru had been that way once before, for Rem. She had forgiven him all his faults... As Rin had. Has Ren did…

.

_He girl has to go._

.

His thoughts trailed to the girl never-the-less and everything that had happened so far. He's frightened her, nearly killed her and it only seemed to make her stronger. She grew quickly from the scared thing she had been and when up against demons and gods she now thrived. The human spirit was an interesting thing... that his heart, the heart of a demon, now pained him was a bothersome thing.

Was it from the presence of Rem, the gem inside his chest from the Goddess or was it that no matter how he looked at Ren, she somehow held a sort of charm to him. Even before Rem had shown herself, before the Goddess had been set free. Something about the girl had spelled him. He wondered what she was thinking, wondered what she was looking at and even though he had buried the thought ,whenever he looked at her the same thought resurfaced.

She found him pleasing and now when he recalled Rem's kiss it was not Rem, but the girl. When she shouted at Jaken it was her yelling at him, not a memory of Rem. And this made him feel guilty like he hadn't felt since Rem's death.

He felt guilty for being able to move on because of some girl. Another human girl at that...


	14. The Half Demon, Davien

The sun rose on the people sleeping in the room with only three of the four walls it had but an afternoon earlier. Kagome rolled over and curled beside InuYasha whom had fallen asleep finally after being up most the night. Rin slept on what remained of a chair and the little demon flea and Ren were gone.

.

"Would you stop doing that?!" Ren slapped the flea at her neck and blew him away.

"My apologizes, it is simply that your blood is the most divine thing, if I might say so." She was irked with almost every word that came from his mouth and looked at Jaken. "May I?" Jaken eyed the staff of two heads and nodded. Ren took it and chased the little flea around the kitchen that was almost completely clean now.

"My lady, please." Myoga ran and evaded every hit and she soon gave up.

"Don't call me that or I will have Jaken teach me how to use this thing…" Jaken gapped and took the staff back when she thrust it out to him. "Jaken… this place wouldn't have a bath would it?" Jaken thought about bringing her up to the second floor and decided it couldn't hurt. Sesshomaru hadn't said she wasn't aloud there.

"The estate has everything. Follow me." Jaken led the way and Myoga followed despite Ren's attempted murder of him. "It is always moving, the water, so it does not ever need to be changed. A spring feeds the water here." Ren took a towel that looked remotely clean and bowed and then hugged Jaken.

"Thank you. For everything. I will try to be better so please…. Take care of me." She closed the door before he could say anything. She didn't want to explain that she liked him the best. Even if he was a toad demon, but he was the most normal thing in her life and he treated her that way.

.

The bath was exactly what Jaken had said. Big enough for maybe four people to soak in so as soon as she scrubbed herself pink she stepped it.

"Woah… that really is hot though." She got in the rest of the way and pulled the towel away. Her mind did not stay in a relaxed state for very long. "I'm a dead woman, a goddess and a senior high school student… I have a man that wants to marry me or kill me. I am friends with demons and humans in a time era that I was not born in…

"You do have your hands full, don't you?" Ren screamed bloody murder and her worst fears became real. The bathroom door swung open and InuYasha, Jaken, Rin, Kagome pushed through.

"Who the hell are you?!" Kagome asked, but it was Rin that ran in and covered Ren up.

"I'm a friend. Sesshomaru might remember me. It has been a while though." The strange man laid his eyes on Ren and took the towel into her own hands and walked up to the black haired man. She stopped right in front of him and he smiled. "Have you missed me?" She gave him the dirtiest look that InuYasha had ever seen a human give a person before slapping the man in the face. She then stomped on his foot and pushed him backwards out the window he seemed to have come from.

"Ren!" InuYasha came up from behind her and moved her away from the window so he could see the damage.

"He's a demon…" InuYasha whispered as the man rose back up to the window unharmed aside from a red face and sore foot.

"Half actually. Tell Sesshomaru that I need to speak with him… or not." The black wings at the man's back beat in a lazy manor and he smiled. "How have you been? I heard some tall tales while away…"

"Davien… I would ask you to join us, but Ren seems rather put off with your presence." The man looked at Ren again and she pulled away to where almost every one stood.

"This girl… she is not Rem... Who is this woman?" Davien stepped back into the window and folded up his black wings.

"You touch her and I will kill you, got that?" Davien grinned at InuYasha's challenge.

"Your brother is so friendly, Sesshomaru… Now I'd like to know who this girl is. Lore… Lore told me that Rem had come back… but this girl is not her." Sesshomaru glanced at Ren and ignored the fact she was soaking wet in a towel surrounded by a group of people in the bathing room.

"I'm not REM!" She got over her cautious feeling for Davien and picked up a glass bottle from the ground. "Get away from me or I will cut off your wings and push you back out the window!" Davien laughed and she lobbed the glass vile that had shattered in her hand prior to throwing it.

"And maybe she is… she definitely has Rem's fire. Doesn't she, Sesshomaru?" Sesshomaru ignored that too.

_I am being baited… He will regret this display._

"Ok, that's it, who is this guy?" Sesshomaru had forgotten the details of Davien's involvement in almost everyone's lives currently in this room.

"Davien's wife and Rem's twin sister, was the woman taken by Naraku and shape-changed into Kikyo who attacked you, InuYasha." InuYasha gasped in time with Kagome.

_There are too many humans in this room… _

"I'm sorry, what?" Ren looked back with utter confusion.

"It is not important. It is history that does not involve you." Sesshomaru almost had time to begin talking, but Ren didn't allow it.

"Oh, you mean the woman who I share a soul with along with the soul of the goddess Amaterasu… I can't see how that involves me at all…" She turned away. "I'm sorry… Sesshomaru-sama. I'm just… can't deal with much more right now. But you…" She walked back over to Davien who almost seemed to brace himself for another strike. "You have an unbiased story and I want you to tell me everything you know about Rem." He man smiled sadly at her then.

"There is not a single human that could give you an unbiased life history of the woman Rem… " He gave Sesshomaru the same sad look. "I'm sorry…" Sesshomaru moved, but too slowly. Davien reached out his hand and touched her head with his palm and the world ripped wide open. Ren fell to the ground and screamed clutching her head. "A gift… from Lore…you will forgive me won't you?" Davien took out the window again and InuYasha lunged with the Tetsaiga. His Windscar attack missed, leaving Davien to go whichever way he planned.

_What has he done? I doubt that Ren can handle much more of anything… Her very soul is shaking… there is too much stresses…_

Sesshomaru knelt next to Ren and she slammed her hands into the tiled floor. She hit it so hard that it broke her hand, but she was so distraught that she felt nothing.

"Ren, look at me." She looked at him the same way she had when she first met him. Startled by his appearance.

"I've seen it all. All of it; Jina, Kohaku, Lore, you… and…"She actually took hold of Sesshomaru's shoulders and nearly shouted at him. "I saw it all! She died all alone! Both of them! I don't want to die like that! I don't want to be like them! Always fighting something or someone! Tsukiyomi, Susanoo, Yamato, the tree demon… Kanna… I… I." Sesshomaru picked her up from the ground and carried her out of the room. She gasped with the pain in her hand and curled into herself. Had he known she was biting the inside of her mouth to stop screaming he might have done something else for her.

"InuYasha. Find the raven demon, Davien. Bring him to me. I want to know what he has done to her." InuYasha nodded and Kagome watched with startled disconnection as Sesshomaru carried the girl out of the room.

"What about Rin?" Kagome asked and Sesshomaru answered without pause.

"Leave her here. Ren will require her help." Kagome whispered Sesshomaru's name under her breath with heart felt sorrow. He was out of his league dealing with a modern era girl who was going through what she was. She knew that if in the same position, she would have been breaking inside if not ruined. Humans were not built to deal with the amount of mental duress that Ren was. Sooner or later, Ren was going to burst wide open and who knew what was going to happen then.

"Come on InuYasha. We have a bird to catch." InuYasha grinned and Kagome swung onto his back; they were gone in an instant, leaving Jaken standing with Rin.

"What can I do?" Jaken shook his head and picked up a piece of glass covered in blood. The glass stunk of fear, rage, pain and loss. It was also the scent that was drowning the room in her emotions. Despite being human, even Rin could feel it, even if she didn't know what was making her uneasy.

.

Down the hall Sesshomaru took Ren to a room that was actually furnished and set her down.

"You do very foolish things for a mortal human." Ren looked up at him and cringed at the blood on his shoulder. She didn't mention that being admonished by him was more embarrassing than anything her parents could have done in public.

"You're not like I thought you were... You are a demon, that I know, but you aren't so bad. All of the time… that man is going to get me though." Sesshomaru wanted to almost shake some sense into her. The small part in him that was protective of the girl was shoulder deep in his own inadequacies when dealing with her.

"Do you fear him that much?" He looked at her with concern that even she could see and it made her hand bleed more; she had closed her hand into a fist...

"Yes. I could feel his thoughts… he wanted to rule over me... Lock me away and never have to look at me again. He is going to do what Amaterasu did to him… but it's going to be me… I didn't do anything?! Why can't anyone see that!?" She stared and swallowed audibly.

"Does it bother you?" She looked at him like he was crazy then and before she could tell him so he took her hand and they both dissolved into light.

_Then you will have no fear of him. I will send you home through the Well were no one can get to you… This is all I can do._

When they reformed it was almost inside the village. Ren could tell from the smell. It smelt like rice and cooked fish and herbs.

"You brought me back… How did you… never mind. Why did you not just do this earlier?" She shook her head again. "Never mind that… I think I know." She turned and ran to the Well and without looking back she sat on the edge. It ended up taking a moment though because she had to maneuver around a hand that didn't work anymore. "I would have loved you too… If you have been for me as you had Rem…. It was no wonder that even as she is now, she loves you." She slid down and disappeared.

A minute passed and nothing seemed to change.

"Um… Sesshomaru-sama… how do I make this thing work?" As he understood, it either worked or didn't.

_The Well will not allow you to leave it seems… _ Sesshomaru walked to the Well and placed a hand into the Well. There was something profound about the girl taking his hand and him pulling her back out. As if he was glad the Well did not send her home.

"Ren." She looked up and her eyes widened. His eyes were red and frightening. "I'm going to let you go and you are going to run." She looked behind him and saw what he had felt without looking.

"What are they?" He let go of her hand and she bolted as he had told her to. Her legs carried her and she screamed inside her head.

_I can't deal with this anymore! Two other people live in my soul, Sesshomaru is… well he is Sesshomaru, I can't go home, I have an angry God, or maybe two from the sounds of it, that hate me and are out to get me and…_

"Get away from here! There are demons in the forest!" A woman dressed in black armor ran passed her ignoring her warning. When a man in monk's clothes followed right behind her, Ren stopped and grabbed a hold of him. "Did you not hear a thing I said!?" He leaned forwards and smiled.

"Well hello there." Ren gawked at him and stepped back.

_Is everyone in this world absolutely mad?!_

"Miroku!" The monk smiled again and tore after the woman in black.

"Coming! Wait up!"

"You stupid people!" Ren booked it again and her mind was overrun with the stupidity of some people when the forest seemed to suddenly feel very small and open.

"So you can sense me… how cleaver…" Ren turned in a full circle and saw nothing. "Tsukiyomi said you would be easy prey… I did not think it would be this easy though… Don't worry… I've already dealt with your friends…" The voice was right behind her and she was suddenly unable to move. She looked down and some kind of purple goo welded her feet to the ground.

"I'm going to die?" The thing before her chuckled. The creature was made of the same purple ooze and it raised a gooey hand to her mouth. "Don't you dare…" Its fist closed around her neck and tilted her head down a bit more.

"I am the demon Oneiroi… I infect people with dreams… or rather nightmares." It gurgled an evil laugh. "I am going to torture you… and when you are too weak I will suck your soul from your body and give it to Tsukiyomi as a gift for my freedom…" With a jerk the creature tilted her head back and pulled a black bottle from within its self. "Now let's see what it is you fear most…" And it poured the liquid inside down her throat.


	15. No Way to Go, But Forward

The liquid was foul and tasted of dirt and oil, plus other things she could not describe. Perhaps it was the taste of death or of dreams. Either way, she was choking on the stuff and no one was there to help her.

_I'm going to die like this? I've haven't had control of my life since I came here... everyone wants something from me and everyone but me gets what they want!_

Ren squirmed against the fist, but it only made it harder to breath. When she stopped trying to breathe the creature slammed a fist into her stomach... some of the liquid came back up, but more was crammed down her right after.

"Release that human!" The monk had returned. "I knew I sensed something strange here, it must have been you!" He didn't mention that he had thought it was the girl that was different though.

"You are interfering..." Oneiroi began to split himself in to two, but the monk moved quicker. Paper talismans shot from the monks hand and he swung his staff in a wide arc which cut the creature in two forcing him to drop Ren.

Ren coughed blackness into the grass while the monk slammed head long into the bushes.

"Miroku!" The woman had also returned. "She whipped the large boomerang from her back and lobbed it. The forest itself seemed to part for the weapon. "Where is the girl?!" The woman turned and saw Ren before placing herself in between the demon and Ren.

"I need to find Sesshomaru!" Ren choked out that much and the woman in black eyed her in surprise.

"What do you want with him?" Miroku came back from the trees while the demon pulled parts that had been severed back to him.

"I need to find him! He was attacked!" Ren got up and started to move, but as if her words had triggered the man, Sesshomaru appeared.

"Where is Tsukiyomi?" The creature gurgled a single laugh before Sesshomaru plunged a poisoned fist into its soft insides. The demon shrieked and twisted in agony. "Do not worry... he will find you... Goddess... there is no escape for you now." Ren stood as if frozen.

"Sesshomaru... something is wrong with the girl!" The woman ran over and Sesshomaru ended the laughter of the dream demon as purple lines round their way into a tattoo like form on the right side of Ren's face a neck.

"Hey! Girl!...She's was forced to consume some foul drink. Do you think it was poison, Sango?" The monk moved aside as Sesshomaru forced Ren's body to adjust and rest her on her back. Her eyes were blank while staring straight ahead; the tattoo had stopped moving.

"Who is this girl?" Sesshomaru need not answer to any human, but too many things were happening and too quickly.

"She is the reincarnation of Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun. She is being hunted by her... brother, Tsukiyomi. This demon... destroyed her way home."

"She was chased from the Well..." Sango and Miroku passed shocked and curious glances between themselves.

_She is like the woman, Kagome..._

"She is like the woman InuYasha keeps. She is from the world beyond the Well. She was trying to go back..." Sesshomaru touched Ren's head and she twitched under his finger. The mark on her head flickered warm and cold under his touch.

"But the Well..." Sesshomaru need not be told. He had witnessed its destruction.

_'Goddess... there is no escape for you now.' That is what the demon said..._

"The man... He almost looked like he was confused about something before he attacked the remains of the Well... it now lays buried." Sesshomaru glanced at the demon hunter and said what she would not.

"A man with a moon emblem on his face." She nodded and looked back to the girl. He didn't mention that he had forgone dealing with the man to find the girl… He had actually worried for her.

_She makes me do things I wish not to. Makes me feel things I'd rather not feel…_

"Yes... May I ask where InuYasha is?"

.

Sesshomaru lifted Ren. He had brought her to set her free of all this and instead had destroyed her only means of leaving it all behind. "He is demon hunting in the east. A half raven demon by the name of Davien." The request went unsaid. _Hunt him down and bring him back to the west._ Sango and Miroku left Ren in Sesshomaru's care although it clearly went against both of their morals.

Under Ren's lids her eyes moved and under his hands her skin was cold and clammy. Whatever the demon had given her was taking affect. He doubted it was killing her, but either way it was not good. He would find out soon enough what ruin it was going to run on her.

_The creature named himself Oneiroi. He was a dream demon..._

Sesshomaru cursed as he became light and returned with Ren to the estate. He required Rin's help more than ever, though he would not say it. Rin was going to be all that kept Sesshomaru's head in place because under the skin, sitting next to the gem that was Ren's heart, was his fear and worry.

And it was running wild on him… and then another thought which plagued his mind.

_There is but one woman I know that has any teaching about dreams... and I am now hunting her husband._

Sesshomaru needed Lore… with Lore he could find out what Davien had done to Ren and force her to aid Ren in fighting off the gathering clouds.


	16. Becoming Benevolently Unbound

The Bone Eater's Well lay buried under the earth and in ruin. Without returning to its location, Sesshomaru knew very well the powers behind the Well and its workings had been destroyed. The aura of magic was dissipating and quickly.

"Is she alright? What happened to her?" Rin sat next to Ren, their appearance together was startling. It was unclear how old exactly old in age Ren was, but she was young. If not slightly older than InuYasha's woman...

_Talk of age does little now._

Sesshomaru found himself admonishing his own mental conversations with growing agitation.

"She has ingested some kind of toxin. We are going to find out exactly what it is going to do shortly." Sesshomaru set her down and left. As it was right now, there was little to nothing he could do for her. InuYasha had been left to chase down Davien...

_Perhaps Kagome will use an arrow on him..._

The thought held only a moment's pleasure. If he was killed, the chances of finding Lore were slim to none.

"S-Sesshomaru!" Rin came running down the hall. "It's Ren!" She hadn't finished and Sesshomaru was already returning.

_This girl does nothing slow in life. Everything is fast paced... Even things like this. Fate does not grant some the time to live..._

_._

Ren's hands clutched into fists at her sides and the tattoo on her face twisted as she bit back a scream. She was unconscious for sure, but her body was fighting off whatever was going on. Even in sleep she was resistant to outside forces.

"Ren-sama..." Rin washed the sweat from Ren's face and pulled the cover down to allow her to breathe more. "What do we do if she cannot fight off whatever is plaguing her?" Rin expected answers, answer Sesshomaru could not give.

_I am left with open hands and nothing to fill them with..._

"Watch her closely, Rin" He left again and sat in his study, where books piled on top of other books. All seemed useless suddenly. None of them had the answers that they once had. They seemed wanting in his eyes and no matter what he looked at, they seemed to tell him what he already knew.

_I can do nothing..._

He remained in the study even when Ren's voice began to carry over to his room without falling back on the abilities of a demon. He could hear her breath, the pound of her heart... and he almost gave up his search when she had begun to scream. Whatever she dreamt was terrifying. Her scent billowed out and saturated everything. It leaked out into the grounds surrounded by the estate to the point that a few demons had begun stalking the area around the estate wall. They never passed the wall though. They knew what the walls inside held.

He forced her bellows from his mind and focused soling on the task at hand. History, lore, antidotes... everything he could think of and he got nothing for the attempt. He did not pull his mind away until the thundering steps of someone running came up the stairs. There breathe was haggard and short.

"Sesshomaru-sama! Please... Ren... I can't hold her down any more. Jaken is with her now but..." Sesshomaru was gone and Rin followed at his quick pace.

When he reached the room that Ren was placed, Jaken sat with his hands outstretched over her body, a think shield encased her in green light.

"She is breaking out my Lord. I cannot hold her in. The goddess..." Jaken shuddered as the toll etched every pain further into his little body.

"It is enough Jaken." The shield shattered and Ren's voice carried to a high tone. As if Sesshomaru's presence was a catalyst.

"Ren. Can you hear me?" Her retching continued, her back arched and her nails dug in to the bed so hard he feared she may further damage her broken hand. To see a human go through so much pain and fear yet fight off the pain of a broken limb was astonishing. She might not even have had a wound with how much she had spiraled into this delusion.

"Make it stop!" She hadn't spoken so much as a word until then. Rin and Jaken had both tried soothing words and gestures. None had prevailed.

"What is wrong?" Her answer was instantaneous.

"Everything!... Make it stop!...I don't want to see it anymore! DON'T MAKE ME SEE THIS AGAIN!" She spun and curled into herself. Hers eyes pinched shut; the tattoo had grown more since last he'd seen. It now coiled up her forehead and down the other side of her face.

"What do you see?" She sobbed outright in-between her screams. She sounded as if she was dying in her sorrow. What she felt was real to her. What she felt was terrifying and it was not stopping.

What he felt and saw was tearing him apart.

"THEY ARE ALL DEAD! I LOST THEM... They were in my hands and they were taken from me..." Her voice began to lower, but she was far from getting through whatever was wrong with her. "I watched them call to me! Beg me! I lost them all... and not just the people from my time... I lost heart once. I tried to run away, but I was tricked! My brother, my brothers... they love and hate me... my mother and father, lost to me. My children... I... I-I WATCHED HIM TAKE THEM FROM ME! RIGHT FROM WITHIN MY GRASPS!" The name Naraku went unsaid. The memories of all three women were clashing together and to what end, Sesshomaru was not sure. "My daughter... she was so beautiful... such promise she had... and the boy... Kohaku... His body fell with mine into the chasm below. I COULD NOT SAVE THEM! MINE OWN!..." She shook more while she wept the tears of many.

"They all left me... I could not save them... I abandoned the humans to fate. I hid while I tended wounds of the heart. Susanoo... Tsukiyomi... my brothers and yet... I love them still... I lost a brother to my own ends... The other I ripped from life with mine own hands and doomed myself all the same. Our souls now tormenting the very humans I swore never to harm again. I swore to keep them safe, love them... I lost them all..." So many woes. So much lose. The human heart could carry so much and yet continue. In their own way Humans were a formidable foe... Sesshomaru would acknowledge at least that much.

"My mother... my father. They were never happy with me... I could never do enough! I TRIED TO DO WELL BY THEM! I TRIED TO MAKE THEM LOVE ME! IT WAS NEVER, NEVER ENOUGH!..." The tattoo finally encased her entire face, whatever end game was going to happen, was going to happen soon.

"I-I... don't want to be alone anymore! I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE!" The tears in her eyes ran purple then and the last word from her mouth was cut short.

"Ren-sama." Rin reached a hand across the floor to her and gripped her hand. Ren gripped hers back.

"Ren-sama." Jaken sat next to Rin and watched with almost a detached feeling. His heart was breaking in time with all the others in the room.

Her body stretched as if hands were pulling her in opposite directions. The look of shock on her face and the silence from her lips was inhuman.

"You are not alone." The voice was final. There was no room left for other opinions. Her body pulsed in time with the gem in his chest as he told her very soul, that her fears were unfounded. Ren's body eased for the first time in hours and a three colored light rose out from her mouth. They shone red, golden and blue. Each light swung around the other and when they came in contact they bounced away and danced once more.

Just from looking at the lights, Sesshomaru knew which belonged to each spirit. The red was the woman he'd married, sworn to protect and who had left a void where she and their children had once sat.

The golden light was the spirit of the goddess and she had been the one who had birthed all three souls, just as hers had once been split from Izanagi. In swearing his protection to Rem, he had also done so for her; Even if now she tried to erase his existence from web of life.

Last was Ren, the blue light. She was the rightful own and current spirit of her soul and body. She was soft, ill tempered, quick to judge, easy to anger and easy to forgive. She was Ren and Sesshomaru answered the cry of his own heart. That despite his love from Rem, she was now gone. She would always remain in his heart, but her spirit needed rest. It needed peace.

"Sesshomaru-sama..." Rin pulled her hand away from Ren as the red light broke off and drifted to Sesshomaru. It rested in the cradle of his outstretched hand before rushing into his chest and disappearing.

_I have always loved you..._

Rem's voice echoed and vanished. Sesshomaru was left bereft and knew for a surety that Rem's third of the soul had relinquished its hold on life and had passed on.

Now only the golden and blue light remained. They circled each other in a fast dance now as both spirits refused to give up their hold on life. The changing light over Ren's face was eerie and it cast shadows on the wall.

"Let the living deal with the living. Your time had passed long before and of your own volition." Sesshomaru spoke to the Goddess directly.

_Do you think I will heed the words of the spirit of the very man I consumed with mine own heart? You are just as you were before. Cold, heartless and without fear. You do not see consequence, you do not see life as it is; Precious. I will not hand over this life until I have finished what I started._

"This choice is not yours to make. Your soul, thought goddess birthed; is second in this matter. The spirit of the woman, Ren, is above you. That is why you cannot over throw her. She does not wish to see you back. To seed back her life to one that seeks only death. You wound her very soul with such thoughts. Can you not her it weeping?" Sesshomaru stepped towards the lights, the golden light shuttered and jolted sharply, while the blue light became bigger and brighter.

_You know nothing demon. You are just the left overs of a god. You have no opinion in this matter. You are Tsukiyomi as he is you, Sesshomaru. Even in birth, your name mimics his very life essence. What do you believe you have that can lay claim here in the matter of hearts and souls?_

"Because I am the one whom houses your hearts; here it settled, because the heart from which it once loved and the heart which tore it from life, were no longer worthy of its care. It resides in my hands." The golden light pulsed with rage. "And I name your claim lacking."

The light laughed.

_And what claim is it that you make, demon?_

"You sealed your own soul with your brother for love. Your love destroyed both of your bodies, but your hearts lingered on and were reborn, your goal; to keep love, carried forward into this very day. You fought to save your brother, Rem fought to save her children. I will fight for the girl her now under those auspices."

_You would fight for love? You fight for the soul that has given itself up and passed? Your love is empty. You love is one sided now._

I do not fight for the resting soul. I am making my claim for the girl who still lives. For the rightful owner of this body.

Ren's light dimmed and sputtered before shrinking to a small sliver of its previous self.

_The girl does not know what to do with your love... _The goddess did not laugh. She did not rage or weep. _Her heart is confused by your claim. Will you still stand by her when she does not feel as you do?_

"You speak as if love were a burden. What resides in my heart is nothing so troublesome. This choice does not weigh anything in my mind. I feel as I will feel."

_You have changed... In years you have grown and learned... Had you only been what you had then. If you had only been what you are now... perhaps, I may have forgiven you... But you speak truthfully, a trait my brother had not. You speak from your heart, even if it is cold and brutally honest at times. You do have love and I see it all around you... I leave the soul in your care. I ask only that you deal with my brother. You may not realize, but you have only part of a soul... you are missing so many great things... You and I will mend this world... someday._

.

The light that was Amaterasu hovered between Ren and Sesshomaru. A tremor shook the ground and the two remaining items brought with Ren flickered into existence. They shone and spun in the air, a sad tone sang in the air.

_I give my spirit to you, Sesshomaru. Make amends with me and my brothers... I leave these in your care now. As the only children and part of me left, I ask you to guard her with your life..._

The mirror that had been broken when Ren had smashed it reformed. The glass unmarked by age and the metal untarnished from use.

_My brother once brought me back to my own self when I turned my back on human-kind. As payment he was thrown from heaven and banished... I regret this. I was a child then... Later he gave me a gift and we make amends. As part of severing Tsukiyomi and I, Susanoo was forced to undergo this as well. Find him and make amends for me... I have wronged him this time... I warn you now, before I leave. The sword before you; Keep it save. It will destroy and in the same swing save the world. This can only be used by me, and in turn, by Ren. She will make a choice that will affect the entire world. It is my gift to her... Choice, freedom and a clean memory... mostly._

The golden light rushed into Sesshomaru and disappeared. The goddess was gone leaving Ren's spirit alone and fearful.

"Ren..." The blue light shifted from side to side and sunk low on to Ren's chest as he stepped near. "I swore to send you home. Until I can do so, these hands are yours." He knelt next to her body and her hand rose slowly and took his. She pushed his hand away and rested them against his heart. Under his fingers, outside his chest was the gem. He took it and placed it in her hand. Her eyes opened and glanced at the gem as if unsure or confused with its purpose. Sesshomaru placed it over her chest and the blue light shot into it turning the once amber gem sapphire. Color returned to her face and the purple tattoo began to fade before his eyes.

"Can you hear me?" Ren's eyes fluttered into focus.

"T-They are all gone... I'm alone..." Rin sniffled and brushed the tears from her face as Ren marveled. "Rin..."

"I will stay with you. Jaken will stay with you." She crept closer and lowered her head onto Ren's shoulder and cried. "You don't have to be alone." Ren looked straight up at the ceiling and smiled into Rin's hair.

"Is that alright by you Master Jaken?"

"Of course. I am and always will be a loyal servant, Ren-sama." Jaken bowed.

"Ren-sama?... Have I missed something Master Jaken?" Ren turned and noticed Sesshomaru for the first time.

"The Goddess and Rem no longer remain within you. You have what has always been denied." Ren stared for a long minute. The long silver hair, magenta strips on his face and amber eyes... His face was perfection. She rose her hand to her face swore violently when it hurt. "Your hand is broken." She looked at him again and then to Jaken.

"There is something wrong with me still. I remember my past, what has happened with Tsukiyomi, the demon, InuYasha, that raven bastard... but you." She eyed Sesshomaru again. "I can't place you in my memory, but I look at you and I know things. I know you're strong and I know you're a demon... I know this is your house... but... of all the people in my memory..." She stopped and rubbed her eyes.

"Are you feeling alright Ren-sama?" She nodded her head and tried to make her brain work as she would like. "Sesshomaru..." She said his name and a fleeting feeling tickled her mind. "I like Kagome, I kind of like InuYasha, I trust Rin and Jaken feels like a friend I could never replace. Tsukiyomi frightens me, Susanoo makes me feel uneasy, Davien I plan to stuff and display as my diner center piece... but I look at you and I have no idea; I feel nothing with you."

Sesshomaru stood and Ren did so in response. He'd actually startled the life out of her, but she would never tell him that.

"Ren-sama. This is Sesshomaru. He has promised to see you returned home." Rin rose and stood next to a very confused Jaken. Rin could tell that Jaken was about to expose everything Sesshomaru had done for Ren and not in the best of ways.

"That is enough Rin." She bowed and dragged Jaken from the room. Sesshomaru was not in the best mood and she did not blame him. He has sworn himself to Ren and she had forgotten all about him. She'd feared begin alone and she now didn't know about the one person that had been with her all the time and even across time.

"Sesshomaru..." She said his name as if it sounded odd on her tongue.

"You will remember me." He said that before taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at him. She colored brilliantly under his glare and she became very conscious about everything. He could see it in her mind as if it were his own. She wondered what he was going to do, she wondered if she should be running or fighting him, but she was stunned by his looks and her heart was skipping every other beat.

_I want him to kiss me... I've never seen a man this attractive in all my life and he's looking at me like I am some kind of food he is preparing to eat. Aside from looking a little pissed off. _

Her thought almost felt like a slap. She was wide open to his perception where before she was almost confusing; the actions and thoughts of many spirits had clouded her mind. The kiss she received was greatly different then how he thought she would take it.

_Oh my god, oh my god, Oh my god... I'm dreaming this. This isn't real... I'll never forget this moment in all of my life._

He tried and failed to force her thoughts from his mind, but they were so strong and clear. The longer he kissed her, the stronger they got and the more he felt like not letting her go. Her honest feelings in that moment made his claim on her heart so violent that he began to have fear of himself.

_I will do anything for this girl... She has done something to me . This girl, Ren, Rem and the goddess. They have all done something to me and I have become like this... Possessive. I grow angry at the very thought of..._

He let her go and almost resumed when he glanced at her face. It was pink and rosy while her breath and heart hammered. Even the way she looked away from him in pure embarrassment was something to covet. He didn't want a living soul to see her.

_Etch this memory into your mind forever Ren. The most gorgeous man on the entire planet just kissed you... memorize it... memorize it. Oh my god he's still looking at me. Look away. Look away... look..._

He took her face in his hands again and her brain shut down.

"Never look away... and you have no reason to have to memorize." Her brain fired off a thousand different thoughts ranging from the following.

How did he do that? Did he read my mind? Oh my god he's sexy. This can't be happening. I could die happy in this moment. He's got white hair... I can still taste him on my lips... he kissed me. I'd die if he did it again. My face is burning. I have to get out of here before I do something stupid...

An image popped up from her head and into his and he actually managed to look at her in surprise.

"Oh my god. YOU CAN READ MY MIND! IGNORE THAT! FORGET THAT!" She bolted and he let her. The last thought that had emerged from her brain was vivid and private. Enough so that even his mind was stunned into dysfunction.


	17. The Hearts That Blend and Bind Together

_I don't believe I thought that!? How could I!? Why can he read my mind?! FUCK!_

Ren wanted nothing more than to actually run away. Her legs felt like jello and as she ran up the stairs she pushed past Rin and Jaken. She ran through the open door to 'her' room or rather the room Sesshomaru has placed her in before, and closed the door. She slid down the door and leaned against it.

GGGGAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

She repeatedly screamed in her head. Firstly for the reason of her complete and utter failure and secondly because if he was going to read her thoughts she wanted him to hear nothing important. Personal. Or anything else.

_Better idea. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…_

She began to sing in her head, but the multiple courses got confusing and she sufficed with another song.

_This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend… some people, started singing it not knowing what it was..._

She felt like an idiot. Her face was on fire, her heart was about to burst and SHE HAD THOUGHT THOSE KINDS OF THINGS! AND HE HEARD IT ALL!

_It goes on and on my friend… He kissed me… some people started singing it… I kissed him… Not knowing what it was… I froze up… I was so into it… I wanted to be kissed… AND THEY'LL CONTINUE SING IT FOREVER JUST BECAUSE, THIS IT THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS!_ _Get out of me head! GAH!_

From the stairs Sesshomaru could hear the one sided argument that Ren was having with herself. She was singing, screaming and arguing really, but… what could he do. Her mind was a scramble of thoughts. She hated that he had kissed her and yet she wanted more. She admonished herself for kissing him back and yet… she thought what she had.

_She will never forget now._

Sesshomaru stifled the internal triumph.

_My first kiss, my first real kiss… THAT KISS WITH THAT OTHER BASTARD DOESN'T COUNT! HE STOLE MY FIRST KISS… He stole my first kiss…_

Ren's mind spiraled out of control and onto darker thoughts.

_She fears Tsukiyomi. She is ashamed that he had kissed her. She is angry to a level and point that it is no longer rage. It is loath… but she hates him mainly for just that. She is angrier now about that kiss he'd stolen than trying to take her, than the fear that he will come for her again… so strange..._

_I… I can't keep the thoughts out of my brain! He's going to hear me… STOP LISTENING TO ME!_

Her voice echoed in his head and he paused at the door to her room. She hadn't heard him coming with all of the mental shouting she was doing.

"Ren. Open the door." Her thoughts silenced. Mostly.

_Sesshomaru… the kiss… what am I going to do? Stop talking to yourself. He can hear you so just answer him!_

"I don't want to!" Sesshomaru placed his hand on the door handle. "Let me in." _I want to be kissed like that again… I'm going mad… _"No! You'll just kiss me again or do something worse!" _Something worse… some… thing…. Worse… STOP!_

Sesshomaru turned the handle and pushed the door. Ren pushed back and bit her lip.

"Get out. PLEASE!" _PLEASE! Don't make me face you… Not now. Not like this._

Her thoughts bounded all over, but they never once matched what words came out of her head until then, but had to see her. Had to speak with her, look on her face and make what she thought was on her face. That he wasn't just hearing things. Imagining things.

"Move Ren."

_I can't… I can't… I'll let you kiss me again. I know it. It wouldn't be hard… I can't resist… I…_

He shoved the door and Ren slide forward against her will. She stared at the floor while twisting her pant leg in her hands.

_Don't think, don't think, don't think…_

Sesshomaru stooped beside her and she turned her face away more.

_Don't let him look at you. Don't let him see your face._

"Kusabana Ren."

_Sigh…_ Against the screams and pleas she gave herself, she looked up at him and showed her face. It was red and he could feel the heat coming off of her.

_I can't resist… _ _Can't escape… I think I'm in love with him… I…I_

"Don't listen to my thoughts…" Sesshomaru paused and looked at her with an impossible expression. He was stunned and a small something forced the corners of his lips to pull against his will.

_Love…_

_He heard you! He heard me… Oh god, what have I done?_

She pulled her hands to her face to hide and stopped her.

"Don't do this… don't do this to me… I'm just confused! I know you love Rem!" Rem's name pulled him up short, if only for a moment.

"Rem is gone. Does that make this easier?" She looked at him and her mind was again silent. The gears in her head were trying to move, but the thoughts wouldn't come. Her mind was afraid to fathom this small thing he offered her.

_Gone… I can try... I could make him like me… I. Stop talking in your head!_

"No. It doesn't…" _I'm so messed up… I want him to let me go and I want him to kiss me like before… wash that other… Creep! From my memory…_

Sesshomaru obliged and all thoughts escaped her. _Don't let this moment fade. Don't stop… _He did stop eventually and again she was red and breathless. Her heart was in her throat and she had taken his shirt in exchange for her pant legs. She pulled down on them with her head bowed low.

_He's so hot… He's all I could want in a guy and I'm rejecting him… kissing him isn't rejection! It's acceptance…! You want to be with him this much? He has to be at last 25… maybe more… what does he see in me? We have nothing in common… other than I'm useless with him around… and maybe he is too… could he want me as much as I want him… Is it possible that he could be just a badly off as me?_

That forced her eyes up.

_Could I be so lucky? Of all things in life I have wanted; this one, that is stronger than all other wants in life so far, could this one be granted? If… If I…. _She leaned forward and kissed him before she had more time to stop herself. _He's kissing me. He's kissing me back… I feel lightheaded…_

A single sound, a tiny sigh of ecstasy in the moment uttered for her lips and Sesshomaru gripped her and pulled her away. His face was stern and severe. _I was wrong! I…_ He was glaring at her now she had no idea why. She could only think '_What have I done?_ '.

"You must control yourself." Silence stretched between them both.

_I have to… what?_

Sesshomaru stood and released her hands from him. "You must control yourself better." His face turned away and her brains first answer to his change in personality was dead on.

_He fears himself! He is feeling too strongly… he's… embarrassed. I'm embarrassed. He… He wants more and fears my reaction… my refusal or allowance… He's confused!... Impossible….._

He turned away and she wished and prayed, a thought that passed to him, that she could hear his thoughts like he could hers. He was more than glad she could not.

_She is soft and warm… her lips…and something about her hands on me… and that sound! That sound she made… She should worry… She should not be so willing…. Too open. I would take advantage of her… if I were less….. Would I refuse her?_

He left her alone and began to argue with himself as she had before. He was arguing that he would refuse her, but he still wondered if would not. And that bothered him. Or did it… and all the while a song that never ended found its way into his mind and frustrated him to no end. Ren remained standing in place as if she were to move, some spell that she fell was on her; would break.

Sesshomaru knew better.

_How could youHo_


	18. The Beginnings of Many Things

_ I don't know what to do with all of this. Tsukiyomi, Sesshomaru, Susanoo and Davien. There is too much going on. I can't think, without being heard, I can't speak because it comes out sounding wrong… It doesn't matter what I do._

Ren knelt at the water's edge and scrubbed a hard something from the inside of a brass pan. Rin was next to her doing much the same thing.

"Ren-sama, Can I asked what happened? Would it be wrong of me to ask?" Ren sighed and dropped the cloth into the water. As it floated away she looked sideways to Rin. She had a right to know why her guardian of sorts had deserted them.

"I'm a bit older than you and things work differently in this time then they do in the future. Things that are wrong to do or say aloud are often acceptable in my time… For example…" Ren thought of the easiest thing in the world. "In modern Japan, it is often common place for a woman to have as much rights as a man and other things; like a woman having a child before marriage. Ok, that one's kind of frowned upon, but it's so common place that it acceptable." Rin stared with clear shock.

"These things… are normal in your world? How could that be?" She was as confused as Ren was trying to think of a way to explain the 'why's' of her world.

"Not sure how it all came about, but it did. A woman can own lands, a house and have a place of extreme importance. It is not a big deal there… and I don't miss it." Ren stood up and scoffed at herself before hiking her pants up and going after the errant cloth.

"You do act very… um…like a man." Rin was clearly going to say 'unlady-like' but that sounded insulting and she avoided it for Ren's sake.

"I guess… I can do everything a man can… mostly…" _I can't make a girl fall in love with me and then ditch her for two weeks… Jerk!_

.

As it stood, Sesshomaru had taken leave of the estate. He'd not informed Jaken or Rin and Ren had obviously been left out of the loop. The first 3 days had been a god-sent. She could think and not be heard and she used the faculties of her mind with a love she would never forget. It hadn't been until later that she got irritated with his absence, then worried and outright pissed off. She explained her rage as being for Rin and Jaken rather than herself.

"That jerk…" She grabbed the cloth and tossed it back out of the water. "What do I care? I don't. Didn't anyone teach him manners growing up? He's a grown man… he's…" _He's a grown man… think of something else, think of something else, think of something else. _"I can't take it anymore. Rin, come with me please." Ren stormed out of the water and took Rin's hand, dragging her into a secluded looking place where she promptly sat down and opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

"Ren-sama?" Rin sat down and suddenly Ren couldn't spit it out. She rolled the words over in her mind and there they clammed up.

"Oh, dammit it all! Sesshomaru… Sesshomaru…" Ren ran her hand down her face in complete frustration. "He… He's… I kissed him." Rin colored and looked away.

"I think… Ren-sama, that is… You should…" Ren felt bad now. She felt like an idiot.

_Great. Now what do I do? In my world I could have told any woman about this and I would have been the luckiest woman on the planet. Now I just feel… like a whore… I'm going to go rot somewhere... I just wanted to feel like something in my life is normal…_ Ren got up and glared at the walls of the estate.

"It's your fault that I can't think right!" She shouted at the estate.

"Is it now?"

_You can't be serious. He's right behind me, with that smug look on his face…_ She turned around and he looked rather irate. _See? Told you. Can't you smile or something? Can you not sneak up on people? Can you not make me look like a complete and utter fool whenever I open my mouth?... What do you have so hard in life that you have to have that same unhappy look on your face? Can't you just be happy?_

Ren realized she had that conversation in her head and Rin was stuck watching as she and Sesshomaru stared at each other in silence. _Great… Now she thinks we are mad at each other. Say something!_

"…. Yes. It is your fault…" She let him have it knowing he wouldn't move against her with Rin present. At least she was pretty sure. "I can't think with you around. I can't talk without stuttering, I'm always looking over my shoulder and either way I look at it, it's either Tsukiyomi after me or his reincarnation. I'm surrounded!... Ah, Rin. Don't leave!" Rin had gotten up and was through the door just as Ren noticed her gone.

_Great. Just great. Maybe if you just ignore him, he'll go away….dammit._

"You speak out of turn a lot for a human woman. It would be wise to learn when to speak." She laughed internally.

"Would that make you like me less? Would you not do those things again if I did?" She turned an exasperated look to him and saw he was actually thinking about it.

"You're such an asshole!" _You're such an asshole! Mental reunion complete. Sesshomaru is a big jerk!_ She walked away and cursed him out and she didn't care what he heard.

_Some guy you fell for. He actually thought about it! Does he not have a brain?! He might be as hot as he is, but he has no idea how to deal with a woman… He thought about it… I'll give him something to think about!_

"Hey Sesshomaru!" She spun around and stuck her tongue out at him. It was the simple, most unattractive and childish thing she could think of and his reaction was just great.

_That one I'll memorize!_

_._

After that she hid in the only place she thought safe; back into the bathroom. With Davien on the run she doubted he'd come back. The downside is that she actually had to get undressed (He would know if she didn't, which creeped her out like nothing else ever would) and get into the water. The soak began with her cleaning off the grim from the lake water. A green slim had stained her legs up to her knees. She washed her hair with this super bubbly soap and then rubbed out the kinked muscle in her side…

The door blasted open and Sesshomaru of all people walked in.

"What the hell!? Hey, get the hell out of here! What are you doing?!" She freaked. He had come into the bathroom, while she was naked, tossed something over her head and taken her out of the water. She thrashed and screamed until she hit something soft and tore the cloth from her face.

At the door Sesshomaru stood. His face staring at the door like it was talking to him or something.

"What is wrong with you!?" Ren smoothed what turned out to be a blanket over her body and tucked it in so it would stay.

"Do you have no idea as to what it is that you were seeing while in the other room?" He turned around and she didn't get what was happening. "I do not always just HEAR what you think. If clear enough, I see what you think." Ren was white and wide eyed.

"Y-You… You were peeking at me! Through me! Oh My God! You could have said something before! I've been in here for a half an hour! You were looking at me for that long?!" She walked up to him and slammed her fist into his chest. Not unlike a normal girl, but a punch. Not that it hurt him any.

"Ren, I did not do these things willingly. I ignored most of what I could…" She hit him again and looked up at him. Again she was crying. He was looking down and away and allowed her to hit him.

_You pervert! You've seen me naked! Oh My God, I could just die… This isn't fair! It's not right!_

Images of modern day molesters and perverts jumped into head in her rage and it was humiliating for both of them. Her as a victim and him being placed in with the perpetrators.

She eventually stopped hitting him and dropped to the ground. She huddled the blanket around her and shivered in the water that had dripped from both of them.

"Why am I like this? This isn't normal for you is it?" She sniffled and he forced himself to look at the damage he'd inadvertently wrought.

"No. Not like this. This is abnormal."

_I'm abnormal. And nothing of mine will ever be secret again… _Her mind cleared and determination slammed down on her weak will. _So be it._

"I'm nineteen years old. I've had one boyfriend. My mother is an accountant and my father is a baker. I did horribly in school and as such my parents were not proud of me. My friends are all petty and simply-minded and I had my first kiss stolen by Tsukiyomi. I'm lost in another world and I didn't learn how to swim until I was 8. My favorite color is blue, I like being outdoors and I dislike sashimi and olives… I think you are the hottest man I've ever seen and I'm not sure if that is ok, because you love Rem and she's not here any more and you look like you could be anywhere between 25 and 33 years old and that is a big difference… and… I have no privacy… and you can invade everything I think…" She ended her rant and listened to the sound of the water dripping from her hair. _He hates me now. I would… I'm so pathetic…Just leave me alone…_

He never did listen. Instead he knelt down and pulled her into him. Ten minutes passed and they did not move; she just stayed there feeling as if she was being shielded from the world and was safe. This is turn passed to Sesshomaru who could only move if she did. If he spoke it would be to answer, if he moved it was to keep in step with her. If he didn't she would be crushed under the weight of being moved along in life against her will. She didn't realize it, but he could.

"I don't want you to hate me. I don't. I like you too much…" She pulled away. "So much that it's confusing. I want to look perfect, act perfect and I can't do that. I'm only me. I feel like that isn't enough. I want you to like me…" Her thoughts told him more than she would ever manage to say in words. It explained modern social standards, peoples, situations and her own desires and thoughts on them.

He learned how to make her fall for him irrevocably and it bothered him. He wanted her to see him like her mind did, without the confusion. He wanted her to see him as he saw her. But knowing how he could do it and so perfectly felt wrong; A violation.

_I want him to kiss me again… Can I think of nothing else? Do I have to?_

"Sesshomaru…" _It's easier to say this in my head for some reason. But I like you. Too much and too quickly… but I'm ok with it all… I like when you touch me… I like when you're around me… I want to kiss you…_

She looked up as if to make sure he'd gotten everything she had said. His startled expression said to her that he had and so she kissed him. It was natural and simple, nothing else mattered in the world. The only thing she did was fight that small sound that she'd made once before, that had angered him.

The kiss she gave was almost not there. It was distant, but warm and light as a feather. It didn't remain that way when he returned her feelings. She became hot under his fingers that had taken her hands. If he hadn't she would have held onto him again and he would ruin the moment she was looking for; That was right. The moment she pulled away as the moment her mind closed off to him.

_I…_

Whatever she had thought, she had managed to keep that single thought silent to him. He was both eased and troubled by that growth in her. That she could keep something from him now… that there was something she actually wanted hidden… and whatever it was remained a mystery to him other than the fact that it was important. Her face told him so.

"Can I stay?" He couldn't answer her; it was not his choice to make. He sufficed with resting her head against him and she allowed that deviance.


	19. On The Wings Of Four Winds

In the mountains, surrounded by clouds and rock, the God of the moons sat with his hands laced in front of his face.

"She is gone… She left me. She forsook her own mortality! For what?!..." He stood in the shadow of the mountain, untouched by the light of the sun. The light was a brand on his skin and in his heart was a void that could not be filled. He had lost his wife, his sister and love.

.

Mostly he had lost his mind.

.

The separation that came with severing a bonded god was painful and permanent. He only kept a small sliver of sanity from an image that lay buried in his head.

Of the woman he had loved, died by and forsaken from, in the embrace of his arms. Her long hair had once been as golden as the sun, but it had turned black. The clothes she had once worn, white and pure had been replaced with foreign cloths of the modern world. And her very name had been warped.

"Ren…"

.

The demon, Oneiroi had failed him. He was supposed to steal Amaterasu's soul, not help free it. Perhaps it was chance that had warped the fabric of time, but in the two instances that the goddess had wept and fled to earth, both had sprung unnatural occurrences. The first had been his defilement of her heart. He had forced his wife to cry and from those tears a gate was rent open. The second was when she wept in a cave and was deceived by Susanoo into coming back out. One lay broken by his hands now. He had done it when Amaterasu had tried to escape him by the gateway she once made.

He destroyed it. The magic fading away as was her choice to die a mortal. The only issue that remained was his reincarnation. The demon named Sesshomaru. As he himself would have done for Amaterasu, Sesshomaru would not give up his claim on Ren. He would have to be destroyed… He had already planned to, his faculties as a god had been severed seeing as he claimed only half his soul…

"I will take back all that is mine. My soul, my wife and sister and I will return to heaven when I locate Susanoo… I will regain my place in heaven."

The taint that death made on a God continued to distort and ruin his mind. Amaterasu's death had only hurried it along a faster course. Death to a god was like a poison, a disease; Unnatural.

.

Thousands of miles away, over the ocean and aged beyond measure and yet still alive, sat Lore. She entertained the presence of a shadowed figure that had shown them self from nowhere. What they told her had been enough to send her husband away and do what she had allowed to be done… She could only sit in patient regret and worry at her sister's fate.

"You have done everything you have out of love… Not for just one, but for many… I will do what I can to repay you. I pray it is enough…" The figure raised a gloved hand to her face and the tears that stained her forehead faded into a pale light. "You have kept more than just your loved ones safe. You, a mere human, saved me." The old and withered face that was Lore softened and she drifted to sleep against the figures hand.

The man left only once they had made sure she was safe. The reason she could not die as a child when her soul had been severed, the reason she was able to claim her mortality after trying to destroy her sister, the reason she could safely house the abilities she once had was all because of him. Had she just housed her own soul and not the embodiment of his powers, cut when Amaterasu sealed herself and Tsukiyomi away; she would have died, Thrice over. Instead she and grown and purified herself of the taint that came with not being born with power.

"You have done enough. I will fix the rest. Sleep well. Your name will be brought back with me and we shall sing songs of the valor of a human woman named Lore."

.

InuYasha and Kagome watched as Davien crossed the sea. They had no way of chasing him now.

"What do we do now? Sesshomaru is going to be angry." Kagome slid off InuYasha's back and stared over the waters.

"So what. I'm not his messenger or anything. If he wants that raven demon that badly let him go and get the bird himself. I'm going home." He turned to leave and Kagome continued watching out over the ocean.

"No we're not. We are going to help make this right. It's only fair. Ren needs our help." InuYasha would have argued if he didn't feel bad about the girl and having left her with his brother. God only knew what he was doing to her in his absence.

"Fine, but don't expect us to be all brotherly about it." Kagome suffered his gruff attitude until she fell asleep on his back on the way back to the estate. It would be a good three weeks before they made it back, but he couldn't complain. He had Kagome alone for the first time that he could really remember. No Sango or Shippo, no Miroku or old hag, Keade. Just Kagome.

Maybe he would thank Sesshomaru after all.

"Nah…"

.

Sango sat with her arms crossed and Miroku leaned against a tree in the shade.

"We should stop here for now… It's no use going in there and battling it out now. We need to wait for word from InuYasha and Kagome." In the distance stood the enormous stone walled battlement of a half demolished half eroded manor. Inside was the girl Sesshomaru had taken and Rin.

"Do you think they are both alright?" Sango settled with her back to a tree and Kilala mewed at her side.

"Sesshomaru would never allow harm to come to Rin. It goes against his nature…. Whatever his true nature is. But he seemed truly worried for the human girl. I'm not sure what it was, the entire situation was a mess, but she is special somehow. I could feel it when she spoke to me and even after the demon had been destroyed."

"So she is a demon then? Or perhaps a spirit?" Miroku shook his head and sat next to his wife.

"No, I did not feel the chaotic aura that came with being a demon nor the essence of being a spirit." He could not explain it to Sango, but the girl was simply different. Thankfully Sango was sufficed with just that answer. For now they would wait for InuYasha to return. Their message left with Shippo at the village with the elder.


	20. The Wish of the Storm God, Susanoo

For the fifth day since everything had changed in Ren's life the sun rose. Today the sky was clouded and no light warmed her as she sat behind the window on the second floor. It was a nice thing to have Rin thought despite her having grown quiet since the incident with Sesshomaru. Ren didn't blame her. It was weird all around, but the thing that hung over everyone's head and inside everyone's mind was the impending return of Tsukiyomi. Neither Sesshomaru her Ren were able think of a pace he would have gone to or when he might return. Would he bring the other God, Susanoo with him or a heavenly army?

Ren had tried countless times to hide the modern knowledge from her brain, but it never worked. Sesshomaru would often come and ask for clarification of the things that jumped in her head. He was unable to tell sometimes which were her thoughts and what her memories. As such she was forced to explain the story of the three gods born from Izanagi.

It was there that Sesshomaru retrieved the weapon Kusanagi; the sword given from Susanoo to Amaterasu and the weapon Tsukiyomi was vying for. He placed is in her hands and it shone.

"I guess with the goddess gone it doesn`t change the fact that my soul was once her…" Wind surged from nowhere and spun her clothes in knots around her before it settled. While in her hands she could hear the sound of flutes, ocarinas and other wind instruments singing in harmony; the sol note stretched on until their ears adjusted to the sound and it seemed to dim. "This was the sword cut from a demons tail… the eight headed snake… I don't know what to do with this thing. And it's heavy." She set the sword down tip first and a tempest spun up around her. "W-What the hell…" Her hair whipped her face and she let the sword go. Instead of falling as gravity would demand, it remained upright; the glow emanating from the hilt radiated with the wind. The entire area rustled with the gust forced into existence and Ren could hear a voice on the wind… so silent and yet it…

_Nee-san… you are in danger… You must leave where ever you are hiding, you must move and quickly. _

"Who speaks from the heart of the blade?" Sesshomaru had stepped forward and stood between the sword and Ren.

_You are the half soul… Sesshomaru. Take her and flee. I cannot hold Kusanagi's power from here and without her mind; Amaterasu cannot hope to calm the blade. That leaves only Tsukiyomi. You must move and quickly._

"You did not answer the question posed."

"Susanoo…?" Ren stood next to Sesshomaru and swallowed the excess saliva that had accumulated in her mouth.

_You remember me, sister mine? I was unsure… I wondered if you would. You do not have powers to sate the blade. You must leave it. It is calling out… leave this place. I am coming._

"And I cannot trust you…" Ren reached forward and clasped the hilt. It flew off sparks and she choked on her breath from the shock of it before letting lose a scream.

_Amaterasu!_

"Ren!" Sesshomaru took hold of Ren's hand and tried to pry her hands from the Kusanagi.

"I… am not leaving it behind! I won't let either have it!" Smoke rose from her hands and she could feel her skin burning underneath the cold touch of steel. "I won't hand it over!" As her mind imagined the sword allowing her to take it, the blade rejected her and tossed her backwards. Thankfully Sesshomaru had taken her arm and prevented her from going too far.

_Nee-san… The sword Kusanagi is a blade of peace…It was why I had given it to you. It is why Tsukiyomi wants it… because he understands it not… I will help you understand, but you have to wait and you have to move. NOW!_

As if the importance of the matter just got through to Sesshomaru, he pulled Ren in and shouted out. The plea from her lips was heart retching as he understood just what it was that made people, humans, a confusing creatures. It didn't matter that Ren had known Jaken and Rin for so short a time. It didn't matter that on the outside Jaken and her almost always argued. Her reaction would have been the same for his brother whom she didn't have the greatest liking for.

"No! RIN! MASTER JAKEN!" They formed into light as a blast of black something shot down and canceled out the swords wind powers. The estate started to break up and to dissolve as the nothingness expanded about the blade. And as Sesshomaru forced her spirit away Ren screamed at him. "Go back! They are still there! They are still in the building! Sesshomaru, please! Put me down!"

Even when he had taken her far enough and returned her body to form, she still shouted. He would have left her with a spirit body had he known that in this moment she was crying fiercely rather than the soft cascade of tears she normally shed. She wanted to protect what was dear to her and him.

"You left them again! How could you! Why didn't you listen to me! Sesshomaru!" She spun and punched him in the ribs. "I could have saved them! I know it! I'm sure!"

_He was about to do something he was going to regret. He was about to do something that was going to save her life._

"You are not a goddess. You are the normal soul of a human. You wield not the powers that Amaterasu once did… I have seen the peoples and acts from your time. This is not a performance! YOU ARE NOT SOME WOMAN WHOM CAN SAVE THE WORLD BECAUSE HER HEART WANTS TO!" Ren pulled away from him in astonishment.

_He shouted at me… I didn't think…. I didn't know he _could _do that… but he's so wrong… he._

"How dare you. Who are you to make these choices for me! So what if I am just a human! I wanted to try! I wanted to do something! They could be dying right now! They might need our help, Sesshomaru!" Had he not noticed the purity behind human motives before he might have thought them insane.

"They are safe. Jaken shielded Ren and taken her back to the village. The village is not a place Tsukiyomi would go. Rin will remain safe there so long as neither you nor I go there and give him reason." She began to laugh inside. It was enough that it brought her to her knees and sighed.

"Of course you did… your Sesshomaru…" _He would never let something happen to them. He cares too much for them to allow them harm… fool. _"Tsukiyomi has the Kusanagi now… what does he want with a sword of peace though?

"I will answer that." Ren turned around and her first instinct was to defend herself with her fist. Her fist slammed into thin air and she stopped as it tossed her backwards into Sesshomaru. He had not had time to act before the strange man had shown himself from nothing and then spoken. "You have changed over the years, Onee-sama." The man pulled back the grey cowl from his face and revealed another figure that resembled Sesshomaru.

"Susanoo…"

He smiled.

.

Susanoo had something that neither Tsukiyomi, Ren or Amaterasu had. Susanoo didn't look demon, but clearly wasn't human despite his physical make-up. As a human, Ren could tell this much and unlike Ren, who had long black hair, Amaterasu whose hair was golden, Susanoo had silver hair. It was in contrast as much to Tsukiyomi/Sesshomaru's white that the family resemblance was apparent. He also didn't have the long flowing hair of his siblings. His hair was tied back into a thong and extremely short on top despite his hair reaching down his shoulder and hanging to the waist of this pants. And his eyes… those were the money makers, they had no pupil, just a solid shade of electric blue that was startling.

"You would know me. I was not sure." He came closer and paused with his arms open to receive her. Sesshomaru didn't release Ren and Ren made no attempt to fight him. "I have forgotten myself. Thousands of years and being reborn a few times as a human… You do not see me as you once did." His hands lowered and he looked at her as if wounded by her actions. "And you, brother." Sesshomaru took Ren by the elbow and pulled her behind him. "It is good to see you would still defend her as you once should have… I approve of this growth in you. Human is becoming of you… I wish Tsukiyomi could have claimed this growth of his own accord, but…" Susanoo glimpsed at his hands as if just noticing they were empty. "I tried to find you both… your act of sealing Tsukiyomi ripped my abilities from my very body, but not my immortality… I was lost without the two other halves of myself… Otosan would not allow me back to heaven either. He said my loss was as much my fault as yours and nii-san's. I could not help keep in balance what should have been… I was not there when I should have and have thus carried the brunt of all of our failings… I have finally retrieved the part of my soul that was stripped from me. The woman Lore helped aid me in stopping Tsukiyomi from ruining everything… I was the one that asked her to send the raven demon to you. I needed to free your memories. Else nii-san would have destroyed your spirit and soul. I could not allow this to happen… but you are not safe here…" Ren watched him speak and even the tone of his voice was inhuman. The manner that he stood before her, the way he looked at her. He really was a God. It wasn't until Sesshomaru pulled her practically into him with his entire arm that she snapped out of her own mind.

"I'm sorry… come again?" Susanoo gave her a long and sad look. She got a lot of those since coming to the world.

_I can send you home. To the future that you came from… I can keep you safe._

His voice had entered into her mind and she could only glare in amazement and then anger.

"I didn't give you permission to go inside my head! Sesshomaru is an exception, but you. Get out!" Ren clamped her hands about her ears and closed her eyes as if to contain the bellow she unleashed in her mind.

Susanoo managed to back away and shake his head… Sesshomaru had been somehow spared from the blast.

"Did you not understand what I have given you? The gift to go home, I've read the contents of your heart and you wish to go not to our place in heaven, not to smother all the thoughts and people that came after your death. You wished to go to the future!" Susanoo made his hand pass over his body and looked again in bewilderment. "Your dreams and desires have changed… Since only a moment ago. You would not leave them… These people who you know least and this man that is the reborn brother you despised enough to destroy…" The poor boy backed away and rubbed his temple a moment. "I do not understand.

"I'm not leaving. I can't. I-I…" _I have people I like here, places I want to see… and I don't want to leave yet. If you've seen the condition of my heart, you would now me._ Ren came towards the man who was cursed to be her brother. _You've been here so long as a partial human and you don't understand._ His face was sad and unbearable.

"I do not wish to have you leave me again, Amaterasu. I have just got you back. I just… I just wanted to keep you safe… Until I can figure out how to return Tsukiyomi back. To make him normal again." Ren laughed inside at the thought… That the word normal was so different for different people. It made things clearer in her eyes.

"I know…" Her hand touched his and she disappeared into light and shot off before Sesshomaru could even do a thing.

"What have you done!" Sesshomaru moved to strike Susanoo down, but he was already gone. Only his voice continued.

"_I had to send her back. She will die here for sure. I will not lose her. I will keep whatever remains of her now and guard it from you. You will kill her. I could not allow it, even if it were for you, brother. I will find a way to make this right, but Amaterasu could not stay."_

The voice left as Ren had; quickly and without barely a trace. So he did what he could and had followed after her in the direction she had gone. His memory tried to warn him of something, but it wasn't until he looked at where he was going that he listened.

"Impossible…

.

.

.

.

.

Ren's form had been stripped clean and she rocketed towards God only knew where. While acting a body of light, she was able to think clearly and everything made a bit more sense. The lack of a physical body allowed for a perfect thinking process; and it hurt her heart. For what she learned as the light swooped down a mountain side and blasted through the side of it without damaging the rock itself and as she felt something get left behind as her thoughts broke through lights and stars before coming out another side was this.

_I am going home! To my own time, with my friends and my family; to the street that my house is on and my bed in my room… I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK YET!_

The light streamed passed men and women on the street and into the front door of her house. It rocketed up the stairs and into her room and as the light expanded and then faded she took back her body which suddenly ached beyond normal measure. She lay on the ground crying from the pain in her limbs and the loss of the something she had left behind in Feudal era Japan. Whatever had been ripped from her body or soul or spirit upon entering the gateway had been dear to her and suddenly it was gone. A hole left in the place where it once rested.


	21. The Kusabana Household

The door swung open and a woman stood in the frame. She was breathless and red from having run up from the kitchen. She even still had the rubber gloves she had been wearing while doing the dishes.

"Ren…" Ren's mother could not move. She was stunned into paralysis… she had been waiting for a month. She had forced her husband to take her to every shrine she could think of to pray for the safe return of her daughter.

"Okasan…" The spell broke and Ren's mother lifted Ren's head from the ground and cried. She wept while holding her as if her daughter may vanish again.

"I prayed… I wished so hard, but I didn't think you would come back to us… W-What happened to you! Where did you go?!" Ren tried with failing attempts to explain, but nothing came to her mind.

"I can't remember… but it hurts…"

"Oh my god…" Ren's sister had come and dropped her cell phone. She had been calling for an ambulance thinking her mother had passed out from stress again. "N-no. She's fine… I don't need help." She instantly started dialing another number after hanging up on the emergency contact on the other line. Ren knew it would be her father she was now calling. "Dad…. She's back…. Come home." Her sister, Saneki, did much the same as her mother. She stood while her brain fought with what to do next.

"Where have you been?..." Ren's mother kept repeating it over and over, not actually looking for an answer; simply venting the emotional stress that came with losing and claiming back a lost daughter. She only cried harder when she glimpsed her daughter's face. She was also crying, but it was not quiet for the same reason.

"I can't remember… it's all missing…" Ren sat up and buried her head into her palm.

"Where have you been….? Look at what you're wearing." Ren's mother stepped back to see what Saneki was talking about. "It's… so old…" Saneki bent down and looked at her sister's face. "Are you alright?" Ren could only shake her head 'no'.

"You look thinner, but stronger… Come downstairs Ren… Your father will be home soon… he'll want to see you…"

.

Ren's mother took hold of her and shuffled her down the stairs. Even when she managed to go to the kitchen and peel her dish gloves from her hands she continued to cry. Saneki remained with her sister and eyed her with suspicion and relief.

"You've been gone for a month Ren… You can't even remember anything?" The last thing Ren had in her memory was of the well and falling down it. The boys that had tried to touch her… Ren shivered into herself and wrapped her arms around her knees. "We never did find out who did all of this to you… The boy at the Shrine said he walked into… he saved you, kind of. He swore you fell down the well, but you weren't there. Not a trace of you…"

"Enough Saneki… We have time to figure everything out now…" On cue, the front door opened and admitted Ren's father. His eyes scanned for his missing daughter who had jumped to her feet when the door had crashed open.

"Ren…" A small part of Ren's mind opened up and the flood of emotion that had been stunted from the start let go. Her face pinched and the tears rolled.

"Otosan…" The head of the Kusabana family dropped his work on the ground and covered the 15 feet between him and his daughter in about 6 steps. Ren broke down as her father lifted her off the floor and smothered her in his arms. She was smaller in frame than her mother and sister, but it didn't matter in the embrace that was her fathers. He was a massive man and she was childlike in his arms; a feeling that made her feel safe; secure.

"I knew you would come back. I knew you could not just leave us…" His tears soaked the side of her face as they rolled down his and on to her. "What happened? Where did you go? Who did this to you?" Her father didn't just ask Ren, but her sister and mother as well hoping they had managed to get some information out of her, but they could not answer his questions.

"I've miss you so much!" The sobbing sounds from Ren ripped her father's heart out and he held her as if she was about to be taken away again. "I wanted to come home so badly!"

.

.

.

.

Inside Susanoo's hands a small something swirled and shone with blue light. It pulsed with every memory he was forced to remove from her mind before sending her back to the modern world. He watched through Ren's eyes as she met with her father and mother. He wished his sister would have received him like they had been. He had missed his sister so much… but she was safe for now. The only thing left was to get back the Kusanagi from Tsukiyomi and keep his brother from Sesshomaru… which was the harder of the two… The sword could not be used right by Tsukiyomi, but it may work for Sesshomaru… and as for the demon himself… If he did not deal with his spirit in the right way he could damage his sister's human spirit in modern Japan or the immortal spirit that was undergoing rebirth in heaven. Both would throw the earth into destruction… Everything hinged on Ren fulfilling the prophesy Amaterasu set down for her and in the right moment… It was only by luck that he had reached the human before she used the power early…

"Tsukiyomi…" Susanoo shot off towards the gathering clouds that had formed in a mountain range in the distance. With the human out of the way, his brother had no vent for his insanity and he had begun to take it out on the inhabitants of earth with _his_ sword. He sent a wish to his father hoping he would intercede this once for human kind, but it was unlikely. Izanagi had not shown himself on the earth since he'd born Susanoo and his siblings... Izanagi would not act to save a woman when he himself had failed to save Izanami… it was his own penance and he would not act; even when it involved his own daughter.


	22. The Will Of The Heart

Ren had begun to put her world back together. Her father had taken a few days off and as a family they had gone to the city to escape a bit of the stress. The bond that was Ren and her father was unshakable as it always had been. Her relationship with her mother and sister were tight being that they were of the same sex and so the day went greatly. The only issue Rem's mother, Izumi, had been that her husband was not sharing her daughter with her and Saneki.

"Tosan… you're being greedy with our daughter…" Ren's father gave a sigh and released Ren's shoulder.

"Go see your mother… She needs you too… we have all been through so much" He let his daughter go and watched as his wife embraced Ren and Saneki… The union of all three was a joy in his heart.

_Life is such a strange thing… the way it seems to always change and become different and yet… it always comes back unto itself…_

It wasn't that he felt he'd been around for a long time, or that he'd lived through as much as he had, it was all normal to him, but the future and past seemed to align when his eyes passed over a shrine in the distance. He could not hold back the sigh in his chest knowing very well, that Ren was a grown woman and she was going to make choices, just as she always had really, ones he may not agree with or like… His daughter was always going to be a woman that went her own way and do things as her heart demanded.

"Mother… I think we have one last stop before we go home…" She turned her head to see where her husband was looking and she smiled into Ren's hair. That sad smile only a beloved one can give and receive in turn.

"Yes… Your right." Izumi didn't want to go back to the Higurashi shrine. The place made her heart sing and cry all at the same time since Ren's disappearance. She was also ashamed of how she had spoken to the boy there whom had claimed Ren had fallen down the well and then vanished. She believed him now, but she was still ashamed.

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The car turned around and headed off towards the shrine that resided on the large side of a hill. On its grounds was the largest tree most of their family had ever seen and behind a locked shed door was the Well.

"I'm sorry, the shrine has been…. Oh. OH!" Sota's mother took one glance at Izumi and then to Ren before bowing. "I apologize, it's just we have had to turn away many guests here for repairs."

"Repairs? What happened that you had to close the entire shrine?" The woman looked to the side as her son, Sota came around the side building with a rather disheartened look on his face.

"The Well…. It caved in on itself about two weeks ago… And we…" Her son reached them and put an arm around his mother. He then saw Ren.

"You're back… How?" Sota's mother silenced him with a glance and he came back to himself.

"Please… I'm so glad to see your daughter has been found. I too had this same thing happen to me once; with my daughter. She came home again as well… I think that is just the ways of girls now-a-days… Come in for tea… we have a very nice brew I'm sure you would love."

"I'd like to see this Well. Even if it is broken." Ren let go of her mother and her Father sighed yet again.

"I'll take her, mother… if you want to lead our guests to the house." A passing glance and the group separated. Sota and Ren in one, Ren's family and Sota's mother in the other.

"How did the Well close up?" Sota took a few turns and passed under the shade of the giant tree onsite.

"Not sure…. One day it was fine… the next. It was buried." He stopped in front of the sliding door and unlocked it; but held it shut as if behind it was something he feared.

"I watched you go down that Well and we've been guarding it for a month… How did you come back if not through the Well?" Ren was confused by his question, her body's reaction left tingles across her skin and a dull pain in her chest and head.

"Why would you guard it?" She eyed him and he pushed the door open. She looked a long moment at the broken wood and upturned earth. The family had been trying to dig it back up and rebuild it by the looks. "Why is it so important to do this for a Well?"

"My sister is on the other side of that Well. Like you had been… She fell threw into Feudal Era Japan; Into the Past… And you did to. How is my sister? Is InuYasha treating her alright?" She put her hands on a splintered piece of massive wood expecting to feel something and being surprised when she didn't.

"Inu-Yasha… what a stupid name…" Sota punched the wall and she stepped away from him.

"Don't talk about him like that! If you had known him you would never have said that!"

_He is so angry… he believes what he is saying…. Poor kid._

"I don't remember any of this… I don't have any memory of the last month." She didn't know why she told him that, but she didn't want him to feel bad about his sister. It bothered her to no end to think about it and when she told him that her memory was gone he seemed to lighten.

"You look different… now that I think about it. Like Kagome did after coming back the first time…" Ren turned from him and stared at the Well more; like she was expecting secrets to come out of it. "She came back darker, from being out in the sun and after a month she had lost a bit of weight and our mother forced her to start bringing food with her…"

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_You look stronger…_

_._

Ren ignored the sound of her sister's voice and even tried to shut Kota out, but to no avail.

"You've been to the past… but you don't remember and with InuYasha guarding the village there, there is no way he didn't sniff you out. You've seen Kagome, but you just can't remember… I just want to know how you got back, in case Kagome ever has to."

The boy led her out and relocked the door. Something bothered her about the whole thing though.

"The shrine is closed for repairs, so why lock the Well door?" He looked down and stared at his shoe then.

"Because we have had a demon or two come out before… when things go wrong on the other side… we're being careful."

"Demons?... demons." Ren took hold on her head and walked away from him, but he already knew.

"You've had your memories _stolen_! You're not acting normal at all… something happened to you while on the other side. I know it!" She ignored him as best she could and tried to find her way alone until the boy took her hand.

"I'll take you back to your family. I'm sure the people you met there were good people and I'm sure they will come for you. They did for Kagome."

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On the far side of a mountain, spending days and nights searching was Sesshomaru. He had traced Ren's light to this place. A place he had been before.

"Both have vanished from this place… I will find where you have gone." Long ago, after losing a battle with Naraku, Rem had turned to this mountain range and jumped with her son in hand. Her body had vanished and Sesshomaru could only find the body of Kohaku.

"I will remove Tsukiyomi as an obstacle and I will make sure Susanoo never attempts to interfere again…" He finished his thoughts in his mind, where once he had heard the very thought and whim of the girl he now chased after. _I will return you… against my promise; I will take you back to this place._

It wasn't until light flared wildly behind him that he found what he had been looking for.

_The gate has opened again… On the other side is this future Japan and Ren._

Nothing stopped him until he removed the large rock blocking the cave and he was faced with the remains of _two_ spirits.

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Susanoo stood before his brother and pled his case and failed. Tsukiyomi had long been warped since Amaterasu's death and with even her reincarnation gone he had no choice, but to do what he could to starve off the toxic disease that mortality had on Gods.

In his hands the physical form of his sister's memory blasted away of its confines. To break out and escape, they had taken a form as well and were fighting him.

_The subdued mind of the girl should not be this active. Someone is meddling, but who could tamper with his powers here while remaining on the far side of the gateway?_


	23. A Chance For The Future

The gateway was a ring of every color known and unknown to mankind. They swirled and spiraled around him until he found the source of the two soul fragments. Regret sank into his skin as the first he recognized as being Rem. She had left a part of her behind for him to find and he had failed… the second was for Ren and when he reached, it touched him with unbounded joy.

Two things had been left behind when Ren was forced back to the modern world. The first, Susanoo had stolen, the second Ren herself left behind.

"You have left behind your memory and love." He could feel it. In the way the fragment sang when he took hold of it and how it cried out to him when the gate had opened. "Do you wish to remain in that world of yours then?" He said that, but had no intentions of not going through and finding her. He would make her understand the gravity of her choice here. And as he left behind the fragment of Rem it flickered, but stayed where it had been standing guard for so long already.

_I will return what has been lost. Beginning with this._ The soul pulsed and he passed through the gate and walked out into a world he could not have imagined if he'd tried. He would never have come close and it brought him to his knees.

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A thousand smells from a thousand different things bombarded him. He was forced to take hold of the rock next to him to stand. His ears rang with the sound of a million different sounds and set a blazing pain behind his eyes. In the world, where humans thrive, his demon abilities were a burden. There was too much going on in this world that it overloaded his sensory perception and made him as blind as any human.

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_This world… this is Japan's future?..._ He searched for even a subtle hint of demonic power and found that there was none. _InuYasha and Ren spoke true… there are no demons in this world._

As his head worked around being demon-blind he found his way up the mountain side easy enough. He may be blind and deaf, but strength would not fail him here. And as the ground leveled out he glanced at a world he thought didn't exist.

Towers rose and kissed the sky and roads as smooth as polished gems stretched out before him. People by the myriads walked before him and felt no fear at his presence. Only a few managed to look at him and that was simply because he wore clothing very unlike their own.

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_This is modern Japan. This is Ren's world. So where is Ren?_

_._

Had this been feudal era Japan he simply would have relied on his sense of smell to locate her. Here that was not going to happen. Not for the entire search anyways.

_Ren is a well-educated woman… nobility at least. She would learn as a scholar I am sure. And her home would be grand indeed. _But the homes he saw in the distance did not resemble homes of his time. Nothing was the same aside from older, half-decrepit builds of a fading and eroded Japan. _She could not have her temper, her attitude if not backed by wealth… Perhaps she is a modern princess… _But this information had not come to him in her memory of this place._ He could only think that if she were in fact a princess, that she would have said as much._

"Can I take a picture with you?" A girl about Ren's age stopped in front of Sesshomaru and giggled. The sight was enough to make him walk away without giving the child a second thought… he had to forced himself to explain that in this world demons did not exist. That they had no reason to fear the random persons they met on the road.

"Woman." The girl spun around and the dejected look quickly disappeared from her face. "Where do nobles go to learn here?" The girl gave him a sideways glance and shifted her shoulders.

"I don't know. School…? What school are you looking for? There are tonnes in this area alone… Are you lost? I can help you find your way." The woman gave off a sickening scent of lust and he realized this human would be of no use at all. He also recalled Ren's opinion on modern woman and how the greater populace acted… this woman before him was under a category she would have labeled as a 'skank'. Whatever that was.

_My name is Kusabana Ren!_

Ren's ability to shout things of a useful nature began to pour into his head. She had mentioned an a few occasions her family name. Kusabana.

"I need to find a family with the name Kusabana." The girl got excited and pulled out a small oddity from her bag. The images changed rapidly on its cover until she sighed and looked back at him.

"This is a very common family name… Do you have a first name or anything like that?" She stepped in closer to him and he fought the urge to leave the woman where she stood and find someone else who may be of assistance.

"Ren. Kusabana Ren." The woman's face darkened as she looked up the name.

"That your girlfriend of something?" Now she was angry at his presence and only wanted to get away.

"She is important." That seemed to lighten her mood a bit and she looked a bit longer at the thing in her hands.

"I found a Kusabana Ren and about 150 others… Do you not know where she lives?" In that moment he realized that she had to live around the Well she had first come through. He recalled the name of InuYasha's woman and thanked his mind for recalling useless information.

"I must find the Higurashi shrine." She turned on the spot and pointed in the general direction that he had assumed. He didn't thank the woman or anything of the sort. He simply tore off into the distance while the woman shrieked at his departure.

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Ren had returned to her home and her mother had allowed her enough space to take a bath alone. Her father had taken on a rather reserved attitude since visiting the shrine and had hidden himself away in his office. Her sister on the other hand sat outside the door talking while Ren scrubbed herself pink and hopped into the bath.

"Mother and father missed you a lot you know… They might not show it so much, but you broke their hearts when you left. Father more than mother… The boy, Sota from the shrine, swore you would come back soon… He seemed so sure of himself and mother and father didn't notice, but the boy's mom kept glancing in the direction of that Well… You ok?" Saneki made sure Ren was alright. The water had stopped sloshing around as Ren had settled and she wanted to make sure she was fine.

"I've lost something… I can feel it. It's important… and it's gone… my heart hurts when I try and think about it… It's like you and mom and dad are gone… but you're right here. In the same house… outside my door, down the stairs in the kitchen and in the office…" Ren watched the water as her throat tightened painfully and ignored the thought that kept creeping into her hear.

_I want to go home._

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In the room below and one room over was the office which currently housed only one person; the head of the Kusabana household. He sat with his fingers laced and sighed for the umpteenth time into his hands.

"She came back. It's really her… but she won't stay with you forever... you didn't think you would be lucky to see your daughter again… I wonder when I should tell her about her mother…" He stood from his chair and opened the door, as he glanced down the hall his eyes watched his wife working in the kitchen. Her hands held away from her apron to avoid dirtying the cloth. His smile for her was gentle and she warmed his heart completely. He would never lose her.

After a few minutes passed he walked back into the office and closed the door. From the desk he opened his empty hands and waited…. And waited… Something's, the important things in life, take a long time… Less if you know what you are doing.

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Susanoo jolted forward as the container that was Amaterasu's memory broke free of his grasps and shot off. He need not watch it to know where it was heading. He did not know how, or who or why, but someone from the future with more power than he himself had called his sisters spirit.

"What was that, Susanoo?" Tsukiyomi sat twiddling the Kusanagi in his hands. His face grinned in a malicious kind of way and had he feared his brother, Susanoo may have tried to run.

"That, is the future of this world… and I cannot control it anymore. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen whether I try to fix it or no… so. As per my goal in being here…. Seems I cannot dattle with you much longer brother. Give me back the Kusanagi." Tsukiyomi laughed and lifted the blade to his brother's face.

"Take it from me little brother…" The stage was set for the future, to either continue onward as it should or crumble at the whims of a deranged God, a lost Goddess and the father of them all who chose to do nothing at all.


	24. Kusabana Izanagi

The Higurashi shrine stood much as it did in the past. The tree continued to thrive on the grounds of the shrine and InuYasha's scent was all over the outside and inside the house. Mainly in the one room on the upper floor; naturally that was the room Sesshomaru went to first.

Inside the room was the color pink in its glory. The room made him ill, but it held traces of the woman, Kagome and his brother InuYasha. As he closed the window behind him, he took in the room in its entirety and tried to force the fresh scent of Ren from his mind.

_She has been here… Recently… _

_Would Ren's living space look like this woman's? _

Footsteps rumbled up the stairs, they were quick and light. The footsteps of a child really; and as the door swung open the boy shouted in Sesshomaru's face.

"Kagome!?" He clearly learned his mistake and shuffled back. "Nope, you're not my sister… You're not InuYasha either… But you have to be from the feudal era." The boy had a semblance of intelligence which was a great deal better than the woman Sesshomaru had to deal with before.

"You are the woman's younger sibling… I must find Kusabana Ren." The boy eyed him and closed the door to allow privacy.

"Who are you mister? You're not InuYasha, but you kind look like him in a scary kind of way." _The boy is not so intelligence as previously thought._

"I am the demon Sesshomaru. Tell me were Ren is." Sota stepped back as if the world suddenly had grown a lot smaller.

"Y-your InuYasha's brother!? That evil guy Kagome told me about?!" Kota spun and grabbed the door handle. Sesshomaru prevented him from going any further. "Hey, let go of me! My sister will kill you if you hurt me!" The boys swung from Sesshomaru's hand and the door opened once again. "Mother, leave!"

"Oh my... That's not right. Put my son down. Now, this is no way to deal with civilized people from the future." Sesshomaru glared at the woman and released the boy whom promptly hid behind his mother. "Who are you and why are you here?"

"That's InuYasha's evil brother, Sesshomaru! Mother! Get away from that guy!" Kagome's mother pushed her son out of the room and closed the door. "Hey… I'll go get grandpa. Maybe he can purify the demon!" The footsteps faded and Sesshomaru stared at the woman.

"What do you want here? Kagome hasn't come through the Well for years…. We feared the Well was broken until it actually did a week or so ago. It caved in and nothing really remains. How did you get from the past to here? Is Kagome safe?" He wanted very much to tell the woman he didn't care, but Ren's voice jumped into his head and forced him to answer.

"The woman lives. She resides with InuYasha in the village and acts as a healer of sorts." Kagome's mother sighed with relief and she was now open to answering his questions. "I am Sesshomaru. InuYasha is my half-brother and I did not come through the Well. I am looking for the woman Kusabana Ren and I know she was here. Tell me where to find her."

"Ren? The girl who fell down the… Oh… She was here… She came to visit. Sota says she doesn't remember anything though… I-I can take you to her if you'd like… From there I don't know what you can do for her…" Sesshomaru followed the woman out the door and down the stairs to the front door. She grabbed what looked like a jailers set of keys and opened the door to a small metal looking carriage. "I'm stepping out for a bit father!" She waved at her son and her father whom was dressed up in some kind of ritualistic gown. "I'm going to see the Kusabana's. This poor man has been looking for Ren." She closed the door and turned the keys, which brought the thing to life. "Um… Sesshomaru… You have to get inside…" Kagome's mother was forced to open the door from the inside for him as he knew not how to work the handle. He didn't even try, but she didn't mind. He was a cute man, very much like his little brother, InuYasha.

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Sesshomaru sat in the odd metal thing with wheels while it roared down the road. He felt completely foolish sitting inside this thing while InuYasha's, woman's, mother took him to where Ren was. It was there, while sitting, unable to do much else, that he sensed Ren again. It was moving at a ridiculous rate and then he saw it. He moved and opened the door before Kagome's mother could react. She slammed on the brakes and when she stopped his door closed shut.

"Where are you going!?" He left her and followed after the light which flew over places that Ren had been in the past. He could tell which places she had been the most because her scent still remained there and strongly.

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Ren's father sat idly while an hour passed by. His daughters had gone out to reclaim some sort of normal life and go shopping. He had sent his wife on a mission of sorts as well while he waited for the inevitable. He knew very well that Sesshomaru would be showing shortly. He'd seen it happen once before while he himself sat idly by and watched the inhabited earth fight off the deranged actions of his son, Tsukiyomi…

"_So much has happened over the years."_ He'd watched his daughter come, reborn as a human, to the warring ages of Japan. Watched the reborn son Sesshomaru, return to bring her back with him and fail. He also knew very well that she would return to the past of her own volition… everything hinged on her actions in the coming months. That was why he had recalled her memories from her brother's hands hundreds of years in the past. He had sworn in the feudal era to never to act on mankind's behalf. Not after a god had failed to safe someone as important as Izanami… It wasn't until Sesshomaru purified the contents of hell that his wife was reborn as a noble and then later as a servant and yet again as the woman he was married too now, Izumi. He never told her who she really was. It never mattered to him. She was his and they always would be together now. He'd forsaken heaven to remain by her forever.

The unfortunate thing was that he was willing to set it all aside and watch the world burn if his daughter chose, according to her own will, the single path of two that would make earth and its future spiral into nothing. He would to that for her because he had watched her go through life in such a painful way. But he would also help the man that now stood in front of his house, searching for his daughter trying to save her and win back her heart.

The God Izanagi stood from his human couch, in his human house and opened the door to the human world. He watched as Sesshomaru turned back and eyed him very carefully. His face said volumes about his intelligence.

_This man is no man, nor is he a demon. They do not exist in this world… He is like only one man that I have met before. Susanoo…_

"I have been waiting a very long time to meet you again, Sesshomaru. I have missed my son greatly over the years." Sesshomaru tensed as he turned to face Izanagi full on.

"I am not your son... What are you?"

_This son of mine is very short, isn't he? _"I am Kusabana Izanagi." Izanagi watched as Sesshomaru's mind went into overdrive. "You are here for my daughter, Ren. She is not here. She left with her sister, Saneki… We have much to speak about and we do not have much time… Come in." Sesshomaru followed behind the massive form that was Ren's father in more ways than one. He was the birth father of the body of Ren and the Godly father of her original carnation, Amaterasu.

"Is Ren safe?" Izanagi smiled at Sesshomaru and nodded.

"For now… though we have much to cover before I let you leave to find her… Sit."

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Saneki dragged Ren along into store after store. Their father has given them the family bank card to aid normal womanly growth and to spend as they both wished. It was a blessing and Saneki was not going to leave it unused. Ren was indifferent by the entire thing. She was in her own world.

This would explain why she never noticed the boy who was following her, trying to get a better look at her face without being seen.

"You can't be serious…. It is her…."

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Sango and Miroku huddled together after helping some villagers away to safety. In the sky, two demons thrashed against each other for dominion and Kagome and InuYasha were nowhere close. They had been forced to flee as the estate had been blown up in a furry of wind and black clouds. Even the smell on the air was inhuman as these two beings clashed in the heavens.

"What is happening? Where has everyone gone?" Sango ducked as a tree swung by and nearly clipped both her and her husband in the head.

"I don't know. InuYasha should be here. This is Sesshomaru's estate… and even he isn't here… What is happening here?" He felt the weight of being human in this moment. He no longer had the Kazaana to use and for once he almost missed it. At least he had been of use while cursed, now he was simply a monk with a habit of being an extortionist.

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Kagome and InuYasha reached the top of the hill and saw the black clouds moving behind the mountains.

"That is not normal." InuYasha watched as the clouds swirled and lightening flashed.

"What is Sesshomaru doing?" She stretched the knot out of her leg and sat down to drink some water from her flask.

"That's not Sesshomaru's doing… That is something else altogether. I can smell Tsukiyomi from here… and another.

"Then we had better hurry. We've been gone for this long already… who knows what has happened while we were chasing that stupid bird…" They set off again towards the enraged sky, both thinking that something bad was happening and they were useless so long as they were all the way out where they were.

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Tsukiyomi's fanatic laughter rent the sky open. He swung the Kusanagi at his brother with lethal agility and pinpoint accuracy. Only being a complete God saved Susanoo from actually taking the majority of his brother attacks.

"I only wanted to keep Amaterasu by my side. She died… She died…" He swung again and hail shattered on the shield around Susanoo. "Then the girl left as well. I was going to keep her for a while… and I was going to kill that demon with the rest of my soul… but she left and he is gone now too. I loved her…." Susanoo was blasted by the powers fanning the Kusanagi. Tsukiyomi had supressed the blade enough to use its power and he was on a killing spree. "I hate her… I hate all of them."

Susanoo tried and failed to over throw his own heart, but he could not strike the killing blow on this brother. This had been the brother that had shared their first creation on the earth together, had shown him how to fight and be a God. Susanoo had been there watching as Tsukiyomi and Amaterasu wed in the heavens before mankind even existed.

"Nii-san… Stop this…" But Tsukiyomi could not here him. Tsukiyomi was insane.


	25. The Feelings That Reach Across Time

Store after store rushed by in attempt to sate Saneki's shopping urges. The street was loaded with men and women from all walks of life who were getting dinner, books or the latest magazine. Ren could only watch them and think _this is so senseless._

"Saneki… I think I want to go home now…" Her sister stopped and looked at her. _I have seen this look before… directed at me… from whom though…_

"Yeah. Sure… Hey Ren… Is… is that boy from our school? I've seen him a few times today already and he's been looking at us the entire time." Ren turned and looked behind her, but could see no one. There were too many people on the street. "Right there… by the Herbal store." She eyed the store and eyed the boy.

"It's time to leave Saneki." Her sister gave Ren a startled look.

"So, who is it?" Ren took Saneki's arm and propelled her forward.

"That boy was one of the guys who tossed me down the Well." Ren was speed walking and shaking all at once. It never occurred to either of the girls to go into a store and mention that someone was following them or find road security.

"Ren… he- he's still following us…" Ren and Saneki started running and they knew that they were now being chased.

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"You expect me to believe all that you say is correct." Sesshomaru stood and took the door handle in his hands, but did not turn it.

"I want for Ren what I wanted for Amaterasu… for all of my children. That includes you, but I will interfere no more than this, really… I have given you enough that you can change the future or continue on its path, but the choices are still in Ren's hands. You have only to show her that she has them." Kusabana Izanagi rested in his chair. It suited him as a human, but knowing he was far from made the scenery around him seem wanting.

"Where has Ren's memory gone? I followed it this way, but it is gone." Izanagi smiled as he got up from the chair turned away from Sesshomaru.

"That I cannot say. Things do not work the way they used to. Things are far more complicated in this time than once they were… My wife for example. She may not know who I am or who she was, but she finds more and more things to be troubled about and more and more ways to get through them. The human trait is a beautiful thing… You'd like it."

The door opened and Sesshomaru left Ren's father to himself, the same as he had found him. Sesshomaru did not know where the memory had gone, but he could not feel it anymore. It was there, standing in the front yard of a small house that was much like the rest on the street, that he heard it.

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_Run Saneki. Run! Move…. Faster._

_._

The images bombarded his brain while Ren ran from someone. It wasn't until Sesshomaru had sifted through the information that he placed the human in her life.

And swore to thank him before killing him.

If it had not been for the lusts of a human and his companions, Ren would never have come to his era. That wouldn't save them though.

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Saneki grabbed onto a door handle and pushed them both inside. A few moments of hiding and not being discovered said they were in the clear so long as they stayed hidden in the 'Electricians' section of the store.

"You're sure it was him?" Saneki's voice was breaking and harsh as she spoke between gasping breaths.

"He chased us didn't he?" Ren stared at her hands before running them over her face and through her hair.

"We can't stay here forever… we'll have to move." Neither of them moved for twenty minutes. That was the time it took for both of their legs to cramp up and require standing to loosen the muscles.

"…When we go through that door, look around, but don't be obvious. Walk back the way we came so we can go home and see Mom and Dad." Ren grabbed her sister's hand and the glass door before them. It took a ridiculous amount of strength to move the door, but it opened and they were outside once again. "Come on… let's go home…" They scanned the street on both sides as they left. Everyone was a suspect, everyone a villain who they didn't even want to brush shoulders with to get away.

A sudden shout forced them to stop and turn around. It couldn't be helped that human nature required mankind to 'look and make sure'.

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Sesshomaru watched as Ren moved away from him.

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_She is there… right in front of you… Move_

_._

Her hand was thrust in the hands of what had to be her sister. He could smell both of their fear from where he stood and as he moved forward he glanced down at the boy standing before him. He was not the boy he had seen in Ren's head moments ago, but within his hands was an object, like the woman he'd tried to pull information from, and on it was the image of Ren. A heading underneath snatched reason from him and he moved to wash this boy's life from the stream of time forever.

.

It's is the same girl! We have to deal with her before it gets out!

.

As people moved to give a large space around the situation, Ren saw the other boy. He had been one of the guys to toss her down the Well also. He had been the one to hold her arms before letting her go. In some kind of way it was interesting to watch him hang from the strangers hand…

She looked at the stranger and could no longer hear her sister begging to go home.

"He's going to kill him…" Ren began to cross the road and shook off her sister's arm. Ren could feel something in the air. It was terrifying for sure, but her body didn't react like the rest of the people on the street. Maybe it was because deep down, she wanted to thank him for beating the crap out of the guy that ripped a month from her life. Because he had tried to take what was not his. The taller and oddly dress man turned his eyes to her and her hands got clammy while her mouth went bone dry.

She found herself standing a few feet from the guy before she finally took in the other man's image.

_He's so frightening… He's so angry… Why is he doing all of this? He…he's wearing… clothes like mine and his eyes… are they red or… they are red!_

He looked at her like she was something he had never seen before. Something magical.

_His hair is actually silver! And he's gorgeous… even when angry….. Look at those eyes… His hands._

"Kusabana Ren." She snapped out of her thoughts and back to the situation at hand. In the distance sirens sang and she noticed she was now in the very middle of this bad circumstance.

"What are you doing!? Stop this! You're going to kill him!" She came forward and pulled down on his arm while the boy's face turned from red to blue.

"Do you not know who this is?" She nodded and wedged herself between the two and shoved on Sesshomaru's chest. She slipped on his loose clothes and they shifted under her hands.

_He's… he's…_

"He's a pervert! He tried to rape me!... But you can't do this! What does it matter to you?!" Sesshomaru eyed the boy and dropped him. Two things had happened that made it somewhat acceptable to him to release the low life that was this human. First was that in some way, Ren was embarrassed for simply touching him. Something remained of him in her heart. The other was the seething rage that was directed at the boy from the entire crowd. He would never go unnoticed in this world again. He was ruined

"Ren." She rubbed her face again and stifled her brains screaming to run as the sirens grew closer.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" She was crying again. It made him… happy, to see it. It was normal for her to cry.

"I've come to bring you back." She wouldn't remember his name even if he told her, so he didn't try.

"Bring me back?... I have to go. The police are coming… You had better go too." She waited and realized he wasn't moving. "Do I have to do everything?!" She shouted and grabbed his hand and smothered her brain and its firing of neurons telling her it was extremely inappropriate to do this to someone that had to be at least 25 years old.

_Come on… come on…. Move faster._

She began to run while dragging the man with her.

_This is nowhere near fast enough… they are going to catch us for sure._

That was when the man took her by the waist and lifted her with one arm and tore off into the sky. She emitted a blood curdling scream as the ground rushed up to meet them and then fade again below them.

.

_I'm going to die!_

_._

"I would not allow you to die here. Not ever, it is why I came to find you again." She stared at him disbelieving. _He can read minds!_

"No… just yours." _He can read my mind!_

She looked at his face, at the blue moon on his forehead, at the magenta strips at his cheek and wondered if they were real. When she realized she was still in his arm and as close to his face as she was… she looked at something else completely embarrassed. Her face reddened when she heard what had to be a chuckle directed her.

When he put her down she dropped to the ground and touched it lovely with both hands.

"What are you?" She spoke while looking at the earth.

"I am a demon. My name is Sesshomaru."

.

_Killing…. Perfection…. What a name._

_._

"Why are you doing this?" She looked at him and pushed backwards in disbelief. "Y-You're disappearing!" He looked down and his shock registered. He had run out of time and not been able to tell her anything.

"I came because I love you." Ren choked and her heart rammed into her cranium. "You were taken from me. I would not allow it again. Come back with me Ren." He wanted to reach out to her, but most of him had already vanished. Thin wisps of light gathered and parted towards the gateway in the mountains. He wanted to implore her, beg her, take her by force, but then he would be no better than Tsukiyomi. He was not making it clear enough for her. That she was his. That she had to come back.

"I don't even know you…" She said that despite the fact that she was bawling. His man, Sesshomaru, was right there. He claimed he loved her and she believed him. There was no room not to. But she didn't have a clue who he was.

"You do. You know me, and Jaken, Rin, InuYasha and Kagome. They know you. But no one better than I…" Only his head and right shoulder remained and she couldn't stop her heart from breaking. Everything hurt. "Come with me." She stepped towards him as she could no longer see him clearly threw her tears.

"Where?" But the wind had blown and the last of Sesshomaru dispersed with it. "S-Sesshomaru… Sesshomaru!" Reality sunk in. He was gone. And without him that part of her that said she needed to go home; even when she was, returned.

"Ren." She turned around and completely broken down.

"Tosan…" She couldn't explain why he was there or even why it pained her so much that Sesshomaru was gone. But he seemed to know. Her father always knew. "I didn't let him speak and now he's gone! I wanted to hear what he was going to say! He's gone…" Her tears forced him to weep with her. It was a gift she had to almost every one she came in contact with. Whatever she felt, others would feel with her.

Right now that feeling was crushing loss.


	26. When Nothing Else Matters

There was nothing but rock before him. Cold and rough rock, small veins of iron ore and other metals bled throughout it, but it was still just as it was meant to be. Rock and not a gateway.

"I cannot bring her back… I can do nothing but stand here while the gate remains closed… Ren on the other side…" His hand touched the rock surface and he felt no stir of power. Nothing.

.

His fist slammed into the rock and part of the cave shuttered.

.

"Why could I not bring you back with me?"

.

.

.

.

.

Izanagi was forced to pick his daughter from the ground and sit her down at a park bench. He listened while she finally vented everything she had been wondering at.

_He said he loved me… I've missed a month of my life… Those guys. I should have let Sesshomaru kill them!... I'm sure he would have… I wonder if Saneki is alright… those clothes in my room… are the same as Sesshomaru's… What happened to me….What is still happening to me….Why are you here?_

She finally got to the place Izanagi wanted his daughter at. Curious.

"How… how did you know I'd be here? How could you know?" Her father opened his hand and revealed a small glowing light. It rolled slightly in his hands as he pushed it towards Ren.

"I guessed… Sometimes fate is not as random as you might think…" The ball rolled into her hands. It was warm and holding it felt like… like coming home after a vacation. It was nice while the break was available, but now it was back.

"Did you see the man?" He nodded and hugged her.

"So, what are you going to do?" Ren looked at him like he'd asked something difficult of her.

"What?"

"What are you going to do about Sesshomaru? Would you chase him if you could or do you want to get on with life as if nothing happened? You have the right. No one will think less of you…. By the way. I never got to tell you, but your mother is pregnant. Twin boys by the looks…" A knowing smile crossed his face.

"Iz-zanagi…" The ball sank into her hand and light flared. "You're…" As she had but days ago, Ren was forced into light and vanished from sight. Izanagi could only smile as he got up and started the car and got in. Dinner would be on soon and he would not miss it for the world.

"Now how do I explain this to Izumi and Saneki…" He shrugged his shoulders and drove down the road like nothing different had happened in his day so far. Then again, this was normal for him and he had been around for a time. Not that is was long to him.

.

.

.

.

"_My time is done now, Sesshomaru…"_ He turned to the very last remains of Rem. "_My duty here is complete…_" The light grew and before he could blink; a hand forced itself out form solid rock.

"Sesshomaru?" That was not Rem's voice. His hand reached out and took the hand in the mountain side and gently pulled. "You there?"

_She is still crying… this girl_

"I'm so sorry! I didn't know! I never knew! I missed you and I tried so hard!" She was halfway out of the wall now. "I wasn't lonely when you were with me! I-I cried so much when you disappeared and left me standing there alone!" Sesshomaru had no idea as to what happened. He didn't really care. She was 10 seconds from being in his world for good. Her memory had found its way back to her and him with it. "Say something to me!" Her foot popped out of the rock and he pulled her into him. The embrace was almost crushing and she didn't care in the slightest.

"I love you." His mouth was on hers and she kissed him back with no reservations.

_I… I didn't expect that…. I… stop thinking about it! _

Her hands wrapped around his neck and he was forced to bend slightly due to her shorter statue. Her fingers gripped his collar and his pushed her closer into him, as if they parted she might vanish and for good.

_Oh!_

"My dad, my real dad is Izanagi! THE Izanagi! As in Izanagi and Izanami! Amaterasu's dad!" She pulled away from him and looked at his face. "S-Sesshomaru…" He disregarded what she failed to say in words. Then he had colored just like she was. That his face, though not red like hers, was pink and flushed and hot. "You came back for me…" Her hands loosened and she held his face.

.

The look on her face at that moment tore normal thought from him in much the same as the boy with the picture.

.

Completely.

.

His hands moved to her shoulders and held her in place, His lips crushing into hers in the shadow of a mountain in the darkness of a cave. The sound that he had told her to once never make came out and it was all the more drive to continue. Her hands had sunk to his neck and coiled with part of his hair. She was holding as if for dear life and he was fine with that.

.

He no longer cared what was human or demon.

.

That she was not a noble.

.

That she was born hundreds of years in the future, but was hundreds of years his junior

.

And that before her, he was both invincible and the weakest creature on the planet.

…

Or even the fact that he had become his father.

.

"Ren…" Slowly her hands slide down his chest and she stared at the small part of him that she had 'undressed'. It wasn't much, but it was enough for her. "Look at me." Her thumb moved from his shirt to his skin. It was like a brand and her fingers curled into to her palm as she peered up.

_She is singly the most beautiful thing in this world. I had almost lost her to each brother and again to the gateway that was time…._

"I'm terrified and I don't want to stop this… whatever it is."

_Perhaps it doesn't matter what she says at this point. Her speech alone draws me further… I have to stop her before this becomes something… else._

Despite his self-proclamation he gently pushed her back against the side of the cave. She was so small compared to him; he surrounded her while she stood before him, her face still at his chest.

He could hear her thoughts on this matter and for once in the entire time he had known her, their minds were in the exact same frame of mind.

_I don't want to stop… but a part of me is afraid of this person before me._

It was enough that she stood on shaking knees, that his heart was hammering away against his best effort to quiet it. A single sounded brought the moment to an end.

.

From outside, laughter rained down and into the cave. It chilled Ren even though her clothes still remembered the heat from the sun a hundred years in the making.

"You came back to me!" From inside, hidden and frighten to no end, Ren answered her brother with a hatred that could have made a physical form had she the ability to back it up.

"I did not come back for you!" She edged behind Sesshomaru and glanced up. The laughter from before had faded from his lips and a frown and furrowed brows marred the youthful face that was Tsukiyomi. She could almost see the work insanity was doing to his body. His skin was almost grey and his eyes had paled if possible. His clothes were tattered and ripped, but he remained oblivious to any injury he had and there were signs of battle all over him.

"You wound me, Nee-sama." The way he said 'sister' was an insult. He bent at the waist and stared down at her as if Sesshomaru wasn't present. His eyes bore into hers and she allowed him to see her fear and her rage. He had tried to steal her, warp her, bind her and she was not having it.

"What have you done with Susanoo?" She grit her teeth and held the back of Sesshomaru shirt to give her some kind of strength.

.

_Ren. Sesshomaru. He still claims the Kusanagi. Do not be fooled… You should not have come back Nee-san, but I am happy to see you again._

_._

"Who knows what happened to him… Surely I wouldn't. He fled the moment we sensed your return to us… It was cruel to not tell us when you were coming back… I punished Susanoo for it." His grin made his face look crueler if all possible.

Tsukiyomi pulled the Kusanagi from his side and pointed it at Ren and Sesshomaru. It almost hung loose from his fingers; lazy almost.

"I plan to do the same after I take back everything he stole from me." He finally glanced at Sesshomaru and she couldn't imagine a darker glance than the one she received from him. She had been wrong. So very wrong and as the moment passed from one second to the next Tsukiyomi's eyes shifted from pale to completely black; pupil, iris and all.

"Tsukiyomi!" Sesshomaru took Ren's hand and listened to the voice of Susanoo that had managed to enter his head.

.

_Take her and run. If you don't, she will get hurt in the cross fire for sure. I will deal with my brother alone._

_._

"We have to leave…" Sesshomaru took hold of her and flew over hills, mountains and lakes to the place where he had brought her when he had poisoned her. Ren covered her ears so she only had to hear the muffled sounds of thunder and Tsukiyomi's hate filled ranting as she got away. "I had almost forgotten… what do we do about Tsukiyomi and Susanoo? I mean…" Sesshomaru placed her down when they landed. "One wants to kill me, the other want sent me back to my world… but the gate is closed now right?..." Sesshomaru had no answer. He wasn't even sure if this classified as a safe place, but against a God, did such a place exist on earth? "The mirror… that has to be it… The sword is a weapon of peace, the gem was Amaterasu's spirit… The mirror!... The mirror…" Her voice faded. "Was in the estate… it's gone." Ren sat down and huddled into herself. "Ok… something has to take on a God…. I don't want you to fight him." She was on her feet and grabbing his shirt that had yet to be fixed since last she man-handled him. "Promise me! You will stay away from him!" This he could not promise her. What she was afraid of was true enough. That he would act to protect her, but Tsukiyomi was also after him. This was simply something beyond him.

"That is something I will not promise." She backed away and glared.

"You mean you fought to save me, protect me, went through time to bring me back to you! And you won't do this?! You are going to go and get yourself killed and leave me here? ALONE!?"

He was on her faster than she could think. Tsukiyomi, Susanoo and everything else on the planet was a figment of a colorless, lifeless world. She tried and failed to stop the tears that always seemed to come to her. They fell down her face and onto him.

_I don't want to lose you… I can't… Not know….. Don't make me live without you…_

"Don't you dare..." She managed only that as his hand flicked her face upwards and his kiss landed on the hollow of her throat. She made that sound… the sound that had to be goddess sent and so, no thread of reason remained.

It was only in both of their interest to silence the others fear where words had failed them.


	27. When Everyting Else Matters

The light was bright; too bright. Naturally Ren shifted to avoid the light and buried her face into something warm.

_Skin….skin?_

She opened her eyes and looked without her mind acknowledging what she was seeing.

_Sesshomaru…._

"Do you require a moment?" She sat up and took his shirt with her. It was not an article of clothing he was currently wearing.

….…..

She stood up and looked down at Sesshomaru while he sat up.

"…uh…eh…." She wasn't wearing what she should have been wearing. She could tell without looking because it was thrown on the grass behind Sesshomaru. Her hands ran through her hair as all stressful thoughts required of her.

"Ren?" She took his shirt and slipped it on with her back to him.

"no….uh…no!" _NO, NO, NO, NO!_

"You do realize that I can still hear you." She spun and went back to not looking at him.

"Your top naked…." _Gloriously unclothed…_.

"You have my clothes." _I have his clothes! _Her face burned as she tried to tie the shirt closed. The entire previous night unraveled in her mind with blinding clarity and she was stunned to go over it in her head. A few things she went over twice and again she heard Sesshomaru make that sound.

He was chuckling. Sesshomaru, of all people!

"I wondered how such a union would look from your eyes… I see things remain as vivid in both sides memory." He was being honest and analytical, but it made it worse. He was remembering the exact same things she was. She could only gawk at him, her mouth hanging wide open.

"I… I-I…. We… I mean you….. Oh my god."

_Memory don't fail me now… because you will never be able to do what you have done again. Perfect skin, gorgeous body… never mind. Forget, forget!_

She stifled her internal battle with the sound of Sesshomaru getting up.

_Don't, don't…._

He stopped behind her and turned her forcibly around. She had never seen such a calm look on his face. He was peaceable and if all possible it made him even hotter…

_Shut your internal, damnable mind woman!_

"You speak too harshly to yourself…" She tried to think of anything but his half naked self in front of her and failed once again.

"You have to put clothes on."

"You are wearing mine." Her mind stopped again.

"Fine… One second…." She tore off and swiped her shirt off the ground. She didn't think about the grass stains that marred the entire backside or the small tear at the hem of a brand new shirt; she just changed quickly behind a tree.

_I know! I know you've seen everything…. Oh dear god he saw everything….. my legs, my body, my …_

Sesshomaru followed her and took back his shirt which she had thrown towards him.

_What did I do? I've messed everything up!_

"You are a completely useless human being…" She was still tangled in her shirt when he came around the tree. Her elbow was sticking out the right sleeve and her other arm was just popping out the left.

"Don't come this way!" He ignored her and yanked her shirt down and pushed her back into the tree.

"Did you hear nothing of what I told you yesterday, child?" She tried to look away and he moved her face back. "Do you believe I have lied in some way?" She shook her head in his hands and her brain finally asked what she had feared the answer to.

_I wonder how it was for him….._

He glanced at her; all of her and smiled. He could actually feel her grow weak under him and he had to sit her down before she slumped over. She continued to gawk which made the smile on his face sore from disuse.

"I would not have changed a thing, Kusabana Ren." Her name from his lips was a type of paralysis he learned. To this he made use of and pulled her into him. She followed despite her brain questioning everything in her life right down to if coloring her room blue had been a good idea at age 6.

_Is this really ok?... I'm younger than he is…._

"Sesshomaru?... How old are you, really?" He would have preferred to not have to answer this. He already knew that this was an issue in her mind. She just didn't know who much of an issue it was going to be if only on her end.

"I do not care to recall exactly… It would be around 400 hundred and 20 years. If I were to guess." Her heart skipped and stopped. He actually was forced to pull her back and look at her face. "This does not matter." Ren looked at him as if looking for a single wrinkle on his face.

"Your over 420 years old….." She got up and looked at him as if he had murdered her entire family. "I'm only…. Oh my god! I'm like….. this is like." She sat down and looked at him in a few light. The rest of her questions filed in place and her throat nearly closed.

"I'm going to die in another 70 years…. And you will be unchanged…. I will grow old and fade and die." Another instant where Sesshomaru was unable to help her. If he moved to console her, she would outright break apart from him. She had fought back to reclaim her memories, rejected a brother, fought against another and received her father's blessings in life to question them on such a trivial thing as age. "How could you not tell me? How could you not say something?"

_What do you care? He's yours. You have only to reach out and touch him! This small thing matter nothing yesterday or the day before. When you were ignorant!... But I am not longer ignorant. I know… But does it matter? He doesn't seem to care… But I care! WHY!?_

"I need time…. I have to think about this…. I know you don't care. But I do. I don't' know why, but it bothers me…" Sesshomaru allowed her that much. He could do little to sway her in this matter as it seemed.

"Sesshomaru!" Ren looked up and spied InuYasha and Kagome! The both rode on the back of some large creature that was…. On…. fire.

"Ren!" Kagome swung of the giant cat and ran to her. "You are alright! What happened?! We could not capture the raven demon, Davien. He escaped over the ocean….." Kagome glanced at Sesshomaru and quickly looked away. He was still without his shirt, a fact he changed a moment later.

"He did then…. That's alright I suppose… Everything has change anyways." Ren cracked her neck and started with a jumble of information and changes in the situation that had happened so far. An hour had ticked by and she was still filling both InuYasha and Kagome in.

"I find it hard to believe that Sesshomaru went into the future to bring back a human... Even if it were you." He glared at Sesshomaru who had returned to being the demon she had first met; Cold and stoic. "And what do I care what you believe and don't believe?" His ears pricked up with the insult intended and he let out a grumble as he walked away and stood watching from a distance.

"So… we still have to deal with your brothers, Tsukiyomi and Susanoo…" Ren nodded and picked apart a blade of grass in her hands.

"Well, Tsukiyomi for sure. I think Susanoo is just trying to keep me safe. To protect me."

"That is not required." Sesshomaru spoke up and InuYasha slide in front of his brother as if the world had become a wonder he'd never seen before.

"S-she. She was telling the truth!? You chased after a human girl and brought her back here!" Sesshomaru glared at his brother and said nothing. "…Y-you…. You weren't wearing a shirt…." InuYasha turned and looked at Ren with utter astonishment.

"InuYasha! That is none of our business!" Kagome stood up and shouted while her own face grew red.

"With a human!" InuYasha pointed in Ren's face and she slapped his hand away.

"Don't talk about things that don't involve you, you idiot! And what does it matter that I am a human! So is Kagome!"

"So!? What about Kagome?!" Ren pulled her hand back and slugged him in the face. He slid a bit and looked at her with daggers. Sesshomaru instantly stood between them with the Bakuseiga drawn and in his brother's face.

"You're serious…. She's not lying…" Somehow this was something InuYasha was having trouble coming to terms with. "You-you…. Does she know what you've done?!" Kagome had been about to scream the magic word that would subdue InuYasha, but she paused. Ren was looking at Sesshomaru as if something was amiss. Sesshomaru remained indifferent.

"What is he blabbering about now? Sesshomaru." His head turned and she realized it wasn't a matter of her winning him over, it never had. It had been a matter of him winning her. She could see it on his face, the single most possessive, determined and willful look she had yet to witness from him. He had waited, fought, bought, risked everything. The worst had been him having to wait and see if his work paid off. And it had.

.

She had come back to him. Of her own will.

.

"Explain." InuYasha wasn't going to be the one to explain. This was not his place at all. Kagome would never understand, but other than strength, life span and a few other things, full demons had a few other things that differed from their half-demon's brothers. "Explain!" Sesshomaru's became the red that she had seen a few times before. The last had been when he had nearly snuffed out a human boy's life.

"InuYasha….?" Kagome stepped away and gave both Ren and Sesshomaru a wide birth.

"You didn't tell her?! You're more human than you think Sesshomaru…" Sesshomaru turned an evil scowl to his brother and looked back at Ren.

"Demons are not as weak as humans in a number of things. Humans will generally pick a human, wed them and often change their partners. This happens very seldom in the demon world. As with half demons, a time comes once a month were they denounced their demons blood and become human. It is the only time a half demon can actually procreate… " She was not following. Everything he was talking about was about half-demons and naturally did not involve Sesshomaru. "Full demons, as a way to continue a pure blood line, the first time a mated pair unite…"

"Oh my God." Kagome slapped her hand over her mouth and stared at Sesshomaru like he was an evil creature. Ren looked at her confused. Obviously Kagome had gotten what was trying to come across so Ren walked over, took her hand and walked away from both InuYasha and Sesshomaru.

"If a single one of you move, you will regret it." Ren glared especially at Sesshomaru as she was very sure she was not going to like what was going to come out of Kagome's mouth.

"I'm not listening to you!" InuYasha shouted and Kagome screeched back the magic word that forced him to pulverize the earth with his face.

One minute passed. Then five and then ten. When as 45 minutes passed both demon and half demon ignored on their own accord Ren's order. Oddly enough, Sesshomaru was unable to hear a thing from Ren's mind. A curious thing.

When both brothers came across Ren and Kagome, Kagome managed to give both a warning look before Ren snapped.

"Y-You! You did this to me! I'm –I'm!" She picked up a rock and threw it. InuYasha dodged, but Sesshomaru allowed the rock to hit him in the chest.

"Do I look like some kind of animal to you!?" Kagome slapped her face and backed away to where InuYasha stood ready to defend himself from Ren. Kagome didn't blame him. Ren was a frightening person when angry.

"What did you tell her Kagome?" She fiddled with her hands and brought his ear down to her level.

"I thought what came to mind first and as both you and Sesshomaru are 'dog' demons, I went with it… It didn't go very well…." InuYasha looked at Kagome in disbelief.

"You didn't…" She nodded.

.

.

.

_It's kind of like a dog... When a pair get together they mate and he claims her by impregnating her. So that she is unable to bare another's….. She becomes his._

_._

"Tell me she is wrong! Tell me she is wrong!" Ren lobbed another rock and Sesshomaru remained silent. He wouldn't deny the other side that had driven him to allow her feelings to flower. There was nothing Tsukiyomi could do now. She was forever his and in time it would show like a wound if Tsukiyomi lived long enough to see her grow.


	28. A Forceful Step Towards The Future

The forest had grown quiet, even Ren had stopped raging. She could only look at Sesshomaru as if betrayed.

"You lie…" InuYasha eyed both of them and wondered if in some part of this conversation, Kagome had picked up a particular spec of information that may pertain to her. Ren's voice whispered out of her lips and she dropped that last rock to the ground. "Tell me! Tell them!"

"There is no lie." She had thought she was finished raging, but she had been wrong. She bent down and picked the rock up again, but his hands were on her wrists and she was forced to drop it. "Does this pain you?"

"You just forced a girl, a modern girl, to you. I'd be pissed off… Think about it. You've given her no choice, what an idiot…" Sesshomaru turned, his hand glowing green. His eyes empty as he stare at his brother.

"Don't! Don't you dare! Not now…" She yanked one hand from him, but he retained the other still. "Let go!" She pulled again.

"Stop this." Both Ren and Sesshomaru spoke as if no one else was present. "You are being a child." That was the magic word to set Ren off.

"I AM A CHILD! I'M 20 YEARS OLDS! NOT 120, 220 or even 320. I'm 20! Compared to you and I am child! And I'm like this! Like THIS!" She showed her empty hand to him and repeatedly brought it up and down her side. "I'm…. I'm…. oh my god…. I can't do this! I'm not old enough for this!" She pounded her fist into him and InuYasha tensed behind her, ready to defend her if Sesshomaru reverted to his normal self.

"Does this thing bother you simply because of age? Already you have mentioned your age. You are more than ready for a childbearing." She gawked at him.

_You are an IDIOT! THAT IS NOT THE POINT! DON'T I GET A CHOICE IN ALL OF THIS!_

"Sesshomaru-nee-sama?" Kagome stepped forward and spoke despite his almost evil glare. "What she means is… she's not _ready, _mentally to have a child. You didn't mention this… situation to her. This is a shock… Becoming a… a mother. Is a big thing for a human…. For a human, this choice is usually made in advance, whether one is ready to become a parent."

_Children are a thing that is planned in the future?... _He turned back to Ren and he saw it in her eyes. _How is that even possible?_

"This is not a place for you, InuYasha. Take your woman and leave." Kagome sucked in a breath, but InuYasha had taken her in his arms and glared a moment at his older brother.

"She has a name, you know." They left and not once did Ren's eyes leave Sesshomaru's face nor vice versa.

"I did not know this thing about your time. Such a thing goes against nature."

"You never asked me." It was an odd feeling. Knowing fully well that this woman wanted to keep him, claim him and show the world, yet she revolted at the thought of baring his child.

"You confuse me… You are here, against the will of time, with me. Have wished and desired relations… but the things that follow such a union you reject? Is it the child itself or me that this thing becomes hard to bare?"

The moment stretched and her mind blasted open to him again.

_We have both erred…. Our times are so different…. Things have changed so much. How could I not have thought of this? He… he actually thinks I would not want him? That his child…. I'm going to have a child….. His…. _She looked at him, examining his person and realized her child would be the most beautiful thing on the planet. _That is NOT the point…. Think about this… sex makes children. In this day and age that goes hand in hand. My world does not work this way. I should have said something! He's not the one who erred!...I did this to myself! OH MY GOD!_

"Ren!" She was startled enough that she made a surprised sound. "Stop shouting and arguing in the confines or your head. I may hear them, but you are always so much louder." She could only gape.

"I'm having a child Sesshomaru… I don't know how to be a mother! I didn't even like babysitting for money! I have no modern medicine and no one to fall back on!"

"That you exist is proof that child-birth is possible without your modern practices." She nodded her head at him.

"I don't know how to be a mother! You've had practice!" She suddenly shut up and threw her hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry… I didn't mean it that way." His hands reached up and took her face into them.

"So why do you feel so alone when I stand next to you?"

_He's right….. He's actually right. I've sat here and screamed at him, thrown things at him… _She wept…. _I've mocked his intelligence in front of his brother of all people...he's in the same boat. He's going to be a father… He picked me to be… he picked me…. To…_

"Do you understand now?" She nodded very slowly and she allowed him to take hold of her hand. She was actually in a state of shock, but for now he would allow her to sift through everything of her own accord.

"I have to find a place for you; More now than before. With your brother after you and with your…. Condition, you pose a very dangerous threat." The estate had been destroyed and will have to be rebuilt later. I can think of only one place and one person that can give you even the semblance of protection." She heard it in the voice, that tone that hoped she would not ask and simply go with him.

"Where are you planning to bring me? Who is this person that can keep me safe? Another demon? Your other demon associates have not proven very helpful, trustworthy or really anything of the likes…" A part of her personality that had been lacking of late had finally returned. She was being cheeky and sarcastic.

"I have not introduced you to this person. Neither Lore, Rem, Davien or even InuYasha has met them. They saved Rin's life once and Jaken... His opinion is moot." She waited and he fixed the red string that she had once tied her hair back with, from the staff of two heads into her hair. "I am bringing you to my mother."

.

Ren said not another word for the greater part of the day while Sesshomaru summoned another demon for two reasons. One would be to gift him with the ability to bring Ren to his mother's location instantly. The other was to ask the Master Sword-smith himself of a weapon that could kill a God.


	29. Inu No Fuku Taishou

The idea of meeting Sesshomaru's mother was a thing Ren's brain was incapable of computing. Instead she waited with anxious hands for the demon sword maker, Totosei. She had been informed of this much so far; that both Sesshomaru and InuYasha's sword, The Tenseiga and the Tetsaiga, had been made by this creature. Ren had never met a sword smith and for some reason she was very interested in meeting Totosei.

As time passed Sesshomaru managed to do much while barely leaving her presence. It was amazing how quickly he was capable of doing things… what he was actually doing, she had no idea, but it was still a feat to behold. The only thing that seemed to irk her was that in three days she had gone from being a mindless human to skipping across time and back to Sesshomaru…. And baring a child…..

_I can't even think about it without spear heading shock head on…._

Her hand moved to her navel and she wondered how big she would get.

_I'm going to get fat… I wonder if 9 months is all a takes for a demons spawn to grow as well._

She laughed at her play on words a bit and sank back into heavy thought.

_What would my parents think of me? When I left I was not pregnant… Father…. He knew Sesshomaru, he`s around still... Right now... Watching how all of this plays out…. He already knows then… Present and future father….My head hurts._

"What is his mother going to think about this?" _This time and era thought much about marriage and contracts... And she's a demon. I wonder if she has other son from other demons. I wonder what she thinks about humans…. Sesshomaru doesn't like them. Aside from Rem, Rin and I… Maybe he has a fetish with names… all of ours are very similar… anyways… Even InuYasha seems to have a kind of distain for humans. What's his problem? He's half human after all… Humans aren't that bad… They are all just being stupid…. Sesshomaru?"_

She got up and looked around, but could not see him. She was under the assumption that distance helped play a part in his ability to hear her thoughts. She was also able to hide things when she really, really, whole heartedly, wanted them secret.

"He's not here again…"

.

Sesshomaru stood just below the tree line and watched for everything that moved. He'd spotted InuYasha and his group of humans as they searched Ren out. They wanted nothing to do with him personally and the feeling was mutual, but they were loud and he could hear them from here. Had anyone been around to listen, they would have given themselves away long ago.

"Foolish…" His thoughts focused back down to Ren whom was a jumble of thoughts. Already her body was dealing with the shock he'd dealt her and she was now worrying on the next thing in her path; His mother.

.

…_She may not know who I am or who she was, but she finds more and more things to be troubled about and more and more ways to get through them. The human trait is a beautiful thing… You'd like it…_

_._

He recalled the speech Izanagi had given him about his wife, Izumi.

"He knew. He knew what was to happen next." The fact that it didn't really matter what a human went through, they would always bear through it and find something else that required them to make their own. Human nature required them to overcome and find the next obstacle and he was watching that nature in the correct light for the first time.

The unfortunate thing about all of this was that His mother was a demon through and through. Sesshomaru, his father and his brother had all embraced humans in some form. His mother had not. The closest thing she had come to an act of kindness towards a human was Rin. She had saved the girl simply for him. He had asked nothing more from her for that kindness… His mother had also never had a part in his life before though. Not once had the woman born witness to his children with Rem. No word about each birth or their death; Never, and he could not lie and say he did not begrudge her in some manor for it.

"Sesshomaru?!" He looked down and saw the Ren standing with Totosei. _How did that creature manage to get passed me? No matter…._ He dropped to the ground floor and was vexed that the demon knew as much as he did.

"So… you are Sesshomaru's new bride?" Ren eyed Sesshomaru with an equally vexed expression and looked back.

"Yes… You can say that." The demon smith bent down and peered at her stomach and poked her once. Sesshomaru might have acted himself to punish the insolence of the act, but she did what she did best and slammed her fist into his chest. Totosei rubbed his chest and wagged a finger as she massaged her sore fist.

"You pick violent women to bed with Sesshomaru…"

_Do not kill him…. Yet. He is still required._

"Do you have a way to bring Ren to the Celestial Manor or no?" Totosei ogled Ren and then Sesshomaru.

"You could have avoided all of this if you had not picked a war with the gods…" He finished before anyone could reprimand his words. "But I have a way… and getting to Ama-no uki-hashi… Your mother is very proud to believe she is…. Never mind." Totosei stopped when he realized both human and demon before him were ready to pulverize him. "So violent…"

"I'm sorry? Your taking me where?" Ren looked back and forth between them both and Totosei answered.

"Ama-no Uki-hashi…"

"Yes, yes, yes; The Bridge that connects earth to the dwelling place of the gods, Takama-ga-hara… why are you taking me to a mytho…. To a bridge?" She had been about to mention that the bridge was just a myth, but she now knew better. It didn't change that fact they wanted to take to the bridge that Izanagi and Izanami first created the continents of the words from.

"I thought you said she knew nothing, Sesshomaru?" Totosei scoffed while Sesshomaru allowed the failure to recall she was a human from the future and that this information seemed to be common knowledge.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here standing right next to you. Just explain." She crossed her arms and scowled. A human trait as both Totosei and Sesshomaru saw it being that both had been surrounded with humans at one point or another.

"I am not taking you to the bridge itself, but the manor that stands on the earthly side of it. Where Sesshomaru's honorable mother currently resides. She has claimed it as her home for the last thousand years or so. It has protections that no other place on the earth has, being that it stands guard of the bridge. She is the Inu no fuku-taishou and has been since the death of Inu no taishou hundreds of years ago.

"Your taking me to go see someone with the title 'Inu no fuku-taishou'? You father was the 'Inu no taishou'?..." Ren closed her eyes and yet again rubbed her face. "Give a minute…" She walked away muttered about how she might greet a woman, Sesshomaru's mother and full blood demon, who claimed the title which translated literally to 'Dog with Greatness under One', who's only higher title was claimed by Sesshomaru's now dead father. And she hated humans; Guaranteed.

"What advancements have you made towards creating a weapon that can kill Tsukiyomi?" Totosei peered after the Ren and looked back.

"She looks a lot like your last… and I have bad news. You asked for a weapon that can kill a God, to kill Tsukiyomi. A weapon as strong as that cannot be forged by even me… but there is a weapon. Already in existence that can unmake all in creation and thus, Tsukiyomi." The small demon paused and ran his hand down the side of his ox. "It is the Ame-no-nuhoko… it is a naginata of unbelievable power… and whispers speak of that power."

"Ah!" Sesshomaru spun and opened a clawed fist at the mere sound of surprise from Ren. "You little worm!" She blew a black speck of something form her hand and bent down to prod it into the dirt. "What have I told you about doing that?"

"M-My apologies." The demon flea Myoga popped back into being three dimensional and bowed. "I had feared for the worst when I heard of Sesshomaru's stronghold in the west being destroyed. "Totosei. I see you have beaten me here after all." Both demons gave the other a passing look before looking back to Ren.

"Master InuYasha and the rest will be here shortly to aid your passing to the realm of Takama-ga-hara. Because of the amount of energies released into the world upon opening such a gateway, it is a promise that, while Susanoo is occupying his brother, the moment the gate is open, Tsukiyomi will drop the battle and come here to get you. Should he manage to gain entrance into Takama-ga-hara, he could be able to undo the very existence of time.

"So you mean to act as a barrier around me while I escape? Are you out of your minds?" Kagome, InuYasha and even the Monk and warrior woman from before stepped out of the tree line. "I won't do it. Kagome is just as human as I am! Same with that Monk and the other woman! Ah…." Ren took a step towards them and stopped before going the rest of the way. "Rin." Ren pulled the girl out from the very back and InuYasha spoke up.

"She insisted in coming. I'm not one to stop her." Ren glared at him and bellowed.

"No wonder your brother can't stand you! You will involve the life of the people around you! When they could die! I don't care if she wanted to be here! I don't care if Kagome or the monk or the other woman want some part of helping out! Get out! Go Home!"

"Ren-sama."

"What?!" Rin stood proud and tall, like Sesshomaru had always remembered of her even though Ren was raining down fire on all of them

"We all have a stake in this. Your brother, this Tsukiyomi wants to destroy everything. We are part of that everything. Even if we are coming to protect you, and most of us are here just for you, we are all risking everything to keep those around us safe."

"You!" She rounded on Sesshomaru. "You're going to allow this madness? This is Rin!" Ren grabbed Rin's hand and he gazed back at her.

"You are making a scene." Gapping and frustrated, Humiliated and ignored, Ren took a good look at every single person present.

"You're all stupid. I won't do it… and you are the biggest one if you think I was willingly going to allow this."

A fraction of a second passed and Sesshomaru took hold of Ren's hand and hugged her. She gasped knowing fully well that this was not a side he showed anyone, but her. Another fraction and a blast of warm air pushed her hair back.

"Don't you dare…" She watched as the sky ripped open and another world lay behind it. "Don't!" He picked her up and she thrashed against him. None of the group would look at her as she pleaded for them to not allow this. "You are going to die here! Don't! Please!" She could smell the clean air of the other place and knew she was standing in the light of some other sun, breathing the air of other trees.

"Amaterasu!" She looked up and her brother was there.

_No. Not yet._

"Don't do this…" Tsukiyomi swung the Kusanagi and Sesshomaru took the blast. "Sesshomaru!" Ren watched as the entire gathering of women and men she had known and not known tossed themselves into the fray. "I won't allow you to do this!" Ren stood and tried to move forward, but a gossamer shield had formed an egg around her.

"Mother. Take her and leave." Ren spun and looked at the exact image she'd once seen in Sesshomaru's estate.

"No, please, no!" Her fist smashed down on the shield and it cracked. Her sniffles of sorrow stopped and she touched the crack. It was real. No figment. She hit it again and the crack grew.

"What is this girl… she is no mere mortal as you have said. She is breaking with physical strength a most powerful barrier." Ren slammed down on the shield again and light radiated from the egg. It tore the gateway wide open and expanded the other world around the entire group.

"I won't leave them behind! I won't allow it! I can't leave you…" The light faceted out from her very tears and Tsukiyomi threw up a barrier of darkness to protect him.

"She has taken my shield from me…" Sesshomaru's mother admired the scene as if there was no threat to her person what so ever. It was as if she was watching an entertaining moment on the TV. "I would have devoured her rather than married her Sesshomaru… though for a human she has promise where the rest of the race has none."

"What is going on?!" InuYasha held onto Kagome and protected her from the gusting winds.

"Some part of the goddess still resides within Ren's body. Her desire to protect, the very thing that embodies the goddess herself is acting in harmony with Ren's wish." Tsukiyomi laughed and drew the blade once more. He was going to attack.

"You protect yourself from a blade of peace. This shield with fall asunder, with no restriction… I will paint the earth in your blood…" He swung the blade and brought it down.

"Kaze no Kizu!" InuYasha stood his ground having left Kagome to Miroku.

The wind almost paused and something strange happened.

"Look! The attack from the Kusanagi has been confused! Both blades are meant to keep the peace and being that the Kusanagi is a storm sword the Tetsaiga is harnessing the power of the other." The two attacks clashed in the air where the darkness and light of Ren and Tsukiyomi met.

"Do you think that the powers behind a degraded god can compare to mine?!" As if the sword in his hand could hear its wielders rage and hate, its true aspect weakened against the will to defend and protect that was the Tetsaiga. Both swords were meant to protect and defend, that the Kusanagi was being used for violent means made it just weak enough to fall to the Tetsaiga. "You see!"

The moment the Kusanagi failed to overcome the Tetsaiga, InuYasha's attack devoured it and grew almost ten times before rocketed towards Tsukiyomi.

"Amaterasu!"

"I am not your wife, I am not your sister and you will never, never touch me or anyone close to me again!" Light seared away the darkness around Tsukiyomi before the attack made impact. They all watched as a dark orb shot out of the way as InuYasha's attack pushed past and demolished all in its path.

.

The gateway slammed down around them and split Ren and Tsukiyomi worlds apart.

"You did not mention others, Sesshomaru... Just the girl… or are these human and lesser demons a gift to me?" Sesshomaru's mother walked passed everyone and stopped before her son. She gave InuYasha a rather insulting look and then looked long and hard at Ren. In that look, not a single thing was divulged. Whatever the Inu-no-fuku-taishou thought remained hidden.


	30. A Moments Reprieve

The resemblance between mother and son was startling. Ren could imagine that as a woman, he would have had to have looked like her. There was no room to look less awe-inspiring as a woman than as a man. Ren only managed to barely contain that thought when he glanced at her.

"Our bargain was for one human. The girl before us is neither human nor demon… or god. And these…" She waved a well-manicured hand at InuYasha's rag-tag bunch. "These were not mentioned in the slightest…"

_She is going to send us away… She is going to turn a blind eye to us._

Ren propelled herself forward and bent down on her hands and knees.

"Please. Don't send us away. If you let us stay, we will be almost invisible to you. I swear it. If you send any of us back (aside from Sesshomaru)…" She could say the rest.

"Don't bother Ren... This is Sesshomaru's mother we are talking about… she cares less for humans than Sesshomaru does…" Ren turned her face from the ground and to InuYasha.

"Silence you idiot half-wit! It is no wonder that you manage to irritate those around you so completely… you never hold your tongue when it would best suit you. Now shut your trap!" Ren glared and for once InuYasha held silent. Kagome held tightly to his hand while his eyes stayed averted from Ren's.

"Promise…" Ren felt cool hands on her cheeks as her eyes were forced to look at the Inu-no-fuku-taishou face to face. "You do have promise…" She let go and rose from the ground then walked away, Sesshomaru followed her with is arm locked in with hers.

"So this is the manor that guards the bridge to the living place of the gods…" The warrior woman next to Miroku was the first to speak from the heavy atmosphere. She gazed around before returning to the matters at hand. "I have yet to have introduced myself. I am Sango and this is my husband Miroku. You have already met him and this demon here is… where did he go?" Sango looked around and picked up a mushroom what began to wail…. "This is Shippo." The mushroom exploded into a blast of smoke and a small tailed creature popped into existence.

"A pleasure to meet you! I'm wasn't sure what kind of person you would be if you were interested in a person like InuYasha's brother… but you seem like a nice person!" Ren couldn't help but smile at the little demon and she bent down to his level.

"The pleasure is mine… what kind of demon are you, then?" She eyed his tail and stifled the internal giggle…

"I am a fox demon!" He gave her a quick twirl to show her what he was made of before backing away and hiding behind Sango and Kagome. "Woah…"

"Ren… Come with me." Sesshomaru waited behind her.

"And what about them? Is your mother really going to turn them out?" She took his hand and looked back at them.

"No. She has agreed to allow them to remain, but they will not enter the manor… They must stay outside. Mother will not allow their presence closer than that." The sigh out of Ren's throat was a tired and exhausted thing. Sesshomaru could see the physical effect stress was having on her. "She has granted you a room in the manor as someone of your level of honor requires…" He was horrible at hiding his tone with her. Absolutely horrible.

"And you?" He stopped and looked over the manor in all of its splendour.

"Being as we are, we will occupy the same living space."

_You have got to be kidding me… I can't sleep with you!_ His amber colored eyes drew her in as he heard her thoughts.

"You know very well what I mean. I've never so much as….. I will figure it out. It's not nearly as embarrassing as having this conversation is." She followed after him as he walked the halls of the manor as is he owned them and not his mother. "You were raised here, weren't you?"

"Yes. This place was my home until I went chasing after my father's image."

_No wonder he has an authority complex. He was raised in a place like this, with a mother….. Don't finish that. He's gonna think you're saying bad things… and I'm not, so stop giving me that look Sesshomaru. It's true. You act very high and mighty, not saying that you aren't, but… do you need to make others around you feel like dirt so you can feel… superior? _

"It is impossible to not act superior when I am. Do you claim that had I been anything less, perhaps a half demon or human, that you would have me all the same?" Her answer stopped him dead in his tracks.

"YOU THINK I LIKE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A DEMON?! AND THAT IS ALL?! That I would think less of you or…or want you less if you were human? You're a strong man, an attractive man which no others compare and you have abilities that mark you as better…" He seemed to catch his breath. "But of all the things you have that are superior to your race, I'd think you have more brains… Ass…" Sesshomaru remained behind while she opened up the only door down the hall way he had led her and entered 'their' room.

"She speaks down to you often, my son?" Sesshomaru offered his arm to his mother and she batted it away with an ornate fan. "Do you plan to bring war to my doorstep? The moon God will not allow her to escape him again…" She touched the mark on Sesshomaru's head and traced it with a nail. "Either you will defeat him or he will kill you and take everything. Though seeing as you keep a human girl… or whatever she is; it would not be much." She walked away from once she came, her final words leaving a scar on his heart. "Do not leave me like your father… he was foolish, even in his greatness."

.

"He was serious… who does he think I am? Is that what he sees?" Ren ranted out loud and in loud. She was quiet furious with Sesshomaru and so he did not follow into the room even after his mother left him. Instead he wondered almost aimlessly the grounds he had when he was a child. Little had changed; nothing really did this close the God's realm. He did have to come up with a way to destroy Tsukiyomi. With Ren's goddess powers almost gone, aside from the act which brought all of them to the Celestial manor, she had no defence. InuYasha could combat long distance and almost nullify the attack power of the Kusanagi which was a boon considering, but there was still no way of taking a Moon God out and for good

"Sesshomaru-sama?" He paused and allowed Rin to catch up with him. He had thought about her in passing, but had not realized his body had moved to go and see her. He had wanted to make sure she was safe.

"You are well. That is good to see." She smiled at him much like she had when she was a child, truly she still was in his eyes, but Ren had changed that thought as well. Rin was a young woman. It was odd to recall often the mortal life-span of their race.

"Yes. When Jaken brought me back to the village I informed the village elder of what had happened and she sent her fastest rider to find InuYasha and the priestess… Shippo went off to find Sango-san and Miroku-san… we all ended up meeting together in the middle… They tried to leave me behind, but I would not allow them to…"

"Where is Jaken?" Rin looked at him and shook her head.

"I don't know… he disappeared after he left me at the village… I have not seen him since…"

"How very odd of him…" Rin agreed and bowed.

"InuYasha is going to come and see you… Kagome made him do it. I think it might be that Kagome has information for you, but she is too frightened to speak to you and InuYasha wouldn't let her anyways…" She walked back towards the group and sure enough, InuYasha made his entrance.

"Hey Sesshomaru!" InuYasha's fire rat clothing billowed in the warm summer breeze that was a constant of the celestial manor. He stood in the limbs of a giant Bonsai, it had been growing since the dawn of time and it showed by its massive size. "That guy… he's gonna find a way to get here and when he does, I don't want have to worry about anyone. So if the chance comes and I can take him out. I don't care who is in the way. I'll take the killing blow." Sesshomaru said nothing despite the inherent urge to snicker at his brother's delusions for grandeur.

"If you can get close enough to make that shot, take it." He was too tired to deal with his brother. But if for any reason his brother had the chance to kill Tsukiyomi, he would rather it taken then not. Ren's life was on the line and his brother did make a target… whether it was because he was weak, loud or of any kind of threat. He would strike InuYasha down to get to Tsukiyomi. The monster could not be allowed to lay hands on Ren.

"You actually care for her? Even though she is a human?" Sesshomaru looked at his brother as if seeing himself from InuYasha's eyes for the first time.

_I am and have been a fool more times than I can count. Both stand on the ideas of us being better than humans and yet it is only the humans that do not make the claim… yet…. In the future only they remain… perhaps they really are the superior races._

"I will not divulge my purposes to you, little brother. The same I suppose could be said about the woman you keep after all…"

"Does Tsukiyomi plan to take her or kill her?" Sesshomaru suppressed the rage that spiraled from just that thought.

"I do not know. He is mad. His love is not for Ren herself but rather the goddess that once resided inside. He is unable to tell the difference and his brother, Susanoo does not seem to have the ability to take him down despite being a God intact."

"Do you have a plan?"

Sesshomaru could only leave then. He had no answer and the lack of them was a burden that he was unwilling to share with his brother of all people. He did draw some enjoyment from the way Ren spoke to him earlier and it was enough for him to bear the brunt of Ren's irritation and remain in her presence. He was not sure how long he would be able to do so with the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.


	31. A Moments Desire FanserviceLemon

The pillows were soft, the blankets softer and they naturally made Ren extremely tired. She didn't want to go to sleep, she wanted to stay on her toes, be aware, but she could feel herself drifting… until the bed shifted.

"Go to sleep. You have not rested well for a while." Sesshomaru might have said all that but he was oblivious to Ren and her brain function.

"I'm not tired…" She curling into her herself a bit and stared at the edge of the bed and waited for the next comment.

"I have watched your eyes falling for an hour… why do you refuse to listen?"

_You're in the same room! I can't sleep with you sitting in the same bed! Have you no…. no… I guess you wouldn't…_

Thankfully Ren's thought remained her own until Sesshomaru remained in the bed and she remained awake.

"Do you wish me to leave?" She didn't want him to leave, but it would make it easier.

"No. I don't." She rolled onto her back because she couldn't look at him directly. "Does this not feel odd for you? Do you not feel… embarrassed in the slightest? I mean… I'm laying right here. After what _we_ did… I don't know how you cannot be embarrassed… You were when I was in the bathroom…" She looked over at Sesshomaru and swallowed audibly.

"You should not speak so openly about such things." His eyes looked sideway at her.

"Who am I to talk about this with if not the person I… I had 'relations' with? When is it allowed to speak of such things?" Her pulse jumped when Sesshomaru twisted around and swung himself over her with his hands on either side. She tried to force her body to _not_ tingle, to ignore his shirt hanging loose in front of him or the fact his left leg was placed _conveniently _between her knees.

"When it is not dangerous for you." She gulped down the extra saliva and opened and closed her mouth. Her fingers coiled around the blanket at her sides and she had nowhere safe to look. His hair was falling down the side of his face and covered the door. A mirror stood on the wall where she could actually see what this scene looked like and it only made it worse.

_Breathe… breathe… I can't move…_

"When is it not dangerous?" That seemed to have made Sesshomaru realize a very important thing. It was never safe for her with him around, because when she said it, her voice was weak, quiet and he could hear what she was trying to hide. That she was terrified and excited all in the same moment.

"It would not be now." Her eyes widened as his hair touched her neck and sent a shiver down her entire body. She didn't tense until his lips touched her cheek. He could see her arms strain as she was all but tearing a hole in the bed fabric. Even her heart was tense. It beat quickly inside the protective cavern of her chest and she exhaled sharply when the bed shifted again. His hand pressed down lightly on her chest, over her heart. "You are scared."

"Terrified… but you can stay…" That cost her much to say to him and he knew it. He didn't have to hear her thoughts or even see her face to know. Just from what he knew of her personality alone he knew.

"You are brave…" That managed to make her look at him and he took her lips. Ren loosened her death grip on the bed and upped the ante on things Sesshomaru thought she couldn't manage to do to strip him of self-control.

She moaned into his kiss and one hand took hold of his side.

_How can she be afraid of me and yet be so completely intoxicating? She manages to make it extremely hard to allow her the slightest amount of softness that a woman would want and not consumer her…_

The other hand rose and took hold of him and he sat up abruptly. She managed to look surprised even though she was pink and her chest heaved under her futuristic shirt. When she went to sit up his hand stretched out to stop her.

She fought to speak and say something. Had she done something wrong? Nothing wanted to come out of her mouth though. Instead she did the only thing she could do. Finish what he'd started.

She slide out from under him a bit and he looked down at her as if just realizing the compromising position she was in. She sat up, him sitting back slightly, and reached for the front of his shirt. Her finger slid past the fabric.

_Don't think about what you're doing… God he's sexy… and I get to touch him…_

A growl or something damn close came from him and she pulled her hands back in surprise.

"I am trying… with a level of difficulty, to give you the moment you want…" Ren looked at his face confused.

"I'm sorry, what?" He was off of her, standing and fixing his shirt.

"You have these ideas, in your head. You think very much of them and yet…" He paused and refrained from forsaking her dreams of her 'moment' when he looked at her. "You act very much out of line with those thoughts…" Her brow rose and she suddenly flushed a deep red. Of all the things she had loved in her modern world was Josie Manga. Sesshomaru has seen in her head some fantasy she had of those kinds of people and was actually trying to… She couldn't restrain the shock, the absurdness of his desire to please her that it came out in uncontrolled laughter.

"S-Sesshomaru." She stood up and walked in front of him. Her face bright and still colored from lust and laughter. "I love you." It came out without any effort and she wrapped her hands around him. Her blood flowed scalding hot in her veins when he lifted her off the ground and moved her back to the bed.

He set her down and in one motion she had startled him, captivated him and made that there was no turning back. She'd pulled her shirt up and over her head and sat on her knees while her hands tugged down on the shoulder of his shirt.

Again the growl sound came from him and she spied his hands clenching at his side.

The fingers crawled up his shoulders and sent a wave of gooseflesh over him until her hands stopped at his neck and she gently pulled at him.


	32. A Moments Pleasure FanserviceLemon

"Has any one told you, that you think too much?" He allowed himself to be tugged towards her and she placed her lips on the corner of his and felt his hands grip her waist.

"Ren…"

"Stop talking." His face turned to her and she finally was able to put him in a place where thought was not a requirement. She pushed up against him and crushed her lips into his. His reaction was only slightly delayed by her forcefulness. Ren was only in control of the moment for a few seconds before Sesshomaru reclaimed that honour. It was beyond anything she could imagine. She was slammed backwards and pushed into the bed; His one hand holding himself up while the other ran down her side, her skin igniting under his fingers trail.

Short breathes wisped out from Ren's throat as something slick ran up her neck. A small groan came out from behind clenched teeth and she sucked in a breath when his hand roamed over her stomach and then up.

_I am going to burst… This thing is not happening to me… This kind of perfection is not meant for someone like me…_

Ren gasped when the middle piece of fabric suddenly let loose from her bra and snapped. She looked up to see Sesshomaru staring at her like he couldn't think of where to start first.

_He is perfection… Nothing is more so than him…_

A single finger dragged down her collar bone and down forcing the bra to fall to the side. Ren couldn't restrain herself anymore if her life depended on it.

"Please…" His eyes glazed over and he bent forward and kissed a circle around her breast. Every sound, every moan and plea that came out of her only drove him further.

_She could be a goddess still in this moment…_

She didn't resist when his finger ran down the seam of her leg, eroding the fabric as it went. She only moaned more when he trailed back up and ran over her pelvic bone.

"You will not regret?" It would be the last thing he would do or say before going past the point of no return. He was still fighting desires of his own. Her own answer in response was to slide her hand down his front and rest on the obi that kept his clothing on his person. He was sure of her answer when she pulled the knot and dropped in over the side of the bed.

"No…" A second ticked by and another. Both remained silent and still until Sesshomaru broke the tableau by sitting back and removing the shirt that hung loose on him now that the obi was gone. The look on Ren's face was enough to make him laugh had he felt comfortable doing so. He read the look as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud.

She was amazed and clearly wanted him, but she was also timid and unsure. She knew not how to continue just as she hadn't when they had first united. He was also intent on making sure she recalled everything the next morning without being eaten away by shock.

Quick flashes of thought came into his mind from hers. She had a bloody arsenal of things she expected, feared, wanted, but was do damn afraid or ashamed to initiate herself.

_I will never speak ill again of having this access into the female mind again._

His hand reached out and took hers and pulled her forward so she sat on top of his lap. He pulled one leg and then the other to either side of him while he relished in her innocence. She allowed him to move her, but she was far from at ease.

"I will make sure you do not regret…" His hand pushed up her back and sent waves of gooseflesh up her sides while the other took hold of her face.

The first kiss was soft and he actually felt her get warmer against him. The second and he could feel her press into him. The gentle curves of her breasts heaving slightly as she tried to keep herself from looking 'the fool' in her eyes. That seemed to not matter when her eagerness got the best of her and she pushed him backwards a bit. A jolt of electricity poured over him when her tongue slipped from her lips. It was something he had never experienced before.

_Something's from the modern world are a blessing… Ren is one… her knowledge if never tested are clearly another. _

His hands worked to slide the other leg of her pants off and just the touch of his hands doing that made her bolder even though she was the only one completely nude. A thought that dawned on her just as it had him. Something that forced her to pause again.

_I want him… Oh do I want him… But I can't do that…. I can't… I sitting here… he just has a shirt off and I'm ready to have him do whatever the hell he wants to me… Is this love then? _

"I don't know what to do next…" It came out so suddenly that he smiled. It was an odd feeling. This need to smile and it came without being called on. Ren had an awe-inspiring smile and he wondered if such a silly thing from him could be so heart-warming.

"I know." He sat forward and lifted her up when he stood. He didn't mention that it was amusing to watch her fumble. She'd removed her clothes and nothing thought about his. Thankfully with having the obi gone the pants soon followed as the shirt had. He felt her tense when she heard them drop to the ground with no effort and she made a forced effort to not look down.

His smile grew larger despite himself. When she was it, her world seemed to come together.

"….Show me. Tell me…. What to do." This smiling of his was sore business and he could not stop it if he wanted.

"Not acceptable. You are mine tonight." She gulped as he set her back down on the bed. Her mind going completely blank and void with the touch of his own lust against her; the tautness of her body eased when his lips lowered to hers and his hand took her breast. Her breath actually skipped as his hand toyed and moved lower. He ran a small circle around her navel before dipping lower still. Her back was arched already when his hand danced over her and she held her breath. Her nails dug into the bed sheet which she relinquished after his hand rolled down her inner thigh.

_She is torn between wanting to continue and fearing it all the same… Such an odd mental facet she has here…_

He did this a few more times and she grew accustomed to it without strangling the bed. As soon as he had that from her though his finger breached her comfort zone and awakened her like he'd seen only once before. It was an utter pleasure to bring her to this point again… he wondered if she would be embarrassed if he told her so.

Ren bit down on her own lip and closed her eyes, chin tilted up. And again, amazed with her everything he moved against her. Little bursts of breath coming out of her and then a moan. Again she attacked the bed sheet, her hands fully gripping and yanking down on it as if she was in need to saving… And perhaps she was. His hand moved to her leg and shifted it aside. She was too lost in her own pleasure to think straight and moved against her she opened her eyes slightly and groaned.

_She is perfection…_

He slid up and forward into her which was enough to force his name from her. He fought back the drive to all but consume her whole… there would be time later, when she was not so timid. Not so awed by him to move this section of their relationship towards him. For now it was more than enough to watch her almost squirm under him. More than enough.

"Look only at me." Ren opened heavy eyes to him and she nodded. That look faded instantly when he move within her; Ren was no longer in a place where thought was required. Her head tilted up and out a bit which was a sight Sesshomaru would recall forever… or at least until he could no longer resist her again.

"Sesshomaru…" Her fingers curled as well as her toes.

It wasn't until she said his name with _that _tone and _that_ manner that he took better notice of his name.

It really was perfect…

Coming from her anyways…


	33. Destroy, Die or Leave

"My Lord Sesshomaru! Open the door!" A sudden bashing at the door jolted Ren literally from the bed. She clutched the sheets against her as she remained quiet naked from the night before.

"Master Jaken?" She hiked the sheet up and took the door handle in her hand, but she was unable to turn it. Sesshomaru's hand held hers and gently pulled her hand away and slid the door open himself.

"My Lord Sesshomaru… I have been waiting for you! Your mother has kept me prisoner for over a week making me act as her servant and not allowing me to come and find you!" Jaken was all but screeching at this point and Ren slid the door open the rest of the way.

"Jaken… Quiet down! You are being very loud…" She hushed him and ignored the incinerating glare from Sesshomaru.

"Ren? Ren!" Jaken rushed forward and tried to hide what little of her was exposed from the sheet. "Ren-sama! You must dress… You cannot dress like that in front of my Lord!" Jaken turned and glanced at Sesshomaru. His mouth dropped to the ground. He had not noticed that Sesshomaru, who had opened the door himself, was wearing a shirt hung open as it draped his shoulders.

"Jaken… If you have nothing of importance to say, leave." Ren scoffed at Sesshomaru and pulled the sheet back from Jaken's hand while attempting to hide the not so subtle blush that had erupted across her face.

"What is so urgent Master Jaken?..."

"Well…" He glanced back and forth between Sesshomaru and Ren and swallowed audibly. "I was released from Inu no fuku-taishou and she told me to come and get you both. She wants an audience with you at once!... But you can't go like that, Ren-sama." Ren looked at Jaken like she was ready to burn him on a pyre.

"I know that so come and help me… Sesshomaru-sama can take care of himself." She said that, but Jaken was lifted off of his feet by the shirt and tossed out the door.

"Sesshomaru!? What are you doing?" Conscious of herself as she had not been when she had woken, Ren wrapped the sheet tighter.

"His assistance in not required. Come." Sesshomaru slide a side door open and walked into a well light room which housed the largest array of men's and women's clothing. Expensive old fashioned Japanese clothing, Chinese clothing and others she could only guess at. As she gawked Sesshomaru pulled one item after another from the women's clothing and a few from the men's. He chose a simple set in deep blue which Ren was forced to miss him dress into because she was too much of a coward to watch.

She regretted it later when she had a moment to herself, but next was her clothing and he stood before her with a most interesting look on his face. He had drawn out a cream and lime green color kimono with copper colored satin clouds and bronze river reeds. The sun bore the mark of the sun goddess which she found mildly worrisome and which Sesshomaru ignored outright.

"I can't put this on myself…" She wished Jaken had stayed because she had the frightening feeling Sesshomaru was going to 'help' her into the kimono. The idea made her tingle from head to foot and made her palms clammy with terror. She couldn't say why, but when even her mind tried to fathom the things she was doing, and which involved him, she became a coward outright.

"I know very well that you cannot."

.

Oddly enough the chore of getting dressed was simpler than she'd thought and no advances had been made on his part. She placed most of the clothing on which hung loosely and he drew them in and tied the yellow obi around her to bring the outfit together. She had put the clothes on from behind a paper door and thus avoided having to dress in front of him… it didn't stop her from placing the clothes on at a remarkable speed just in case.

"When we see my mother, you will say nothing unless asked. Ignore anything you may take as insult and stay by my side no matter what. If I am forced to leave your side, you will remain where you stand until I come for you. Do not mention human tendencies before her nor human emotion. Do you understand?" Fear set in and she could only nod her head stiffly. "Come then." He took her arm and wrapped with his as he slid the door open and walked passed Jaken.

Jaken watched two of the most enigmatic figures he ever seen pass him by. He'd already known that Sesshomaru was simply one of those people by nature, but to see Ren walk by as the embodiment of beauty and grace.

"W-wait for me!" He ran in front of them and led the way to Sesshomaru's mother who was in the south wing of the manor. He walked into a room with a large red and gold rimmed door and announced them. After a moment Ren heard the silky voice of Sesshomaru's mother who admitted them in.

"Sesshomaru. So glad to have you come and with the human girl… Tell me Sesshomaru, what do you plan to do now? You have a deranged god who intends to rip the very life from your body… I can understand his loath for the woman, but I cannot allow him to take my son from me… I do not enjoy the thought of having my home destroyed either. Nor the human waste you've brought to my doorstep." Ren heard Sesshomaru's request over and over as his mother insulted her, Rin and every other person on the planet it seemed. She had no love in her heart and she cared not that people were going to die. She had no choice, but to stand with a gentle smile on her face like nothing she said mattered. "And you have chosen yet another human to stand beside you. So much like your father… I should hope that you do not meet the same fate to protect such as she is…"

"My choice in mate is my own matter. I ask you to honor our arrangement that we agreed on. I believe that is still in good standing, mother." The Inu no fuku-taishou glanced at Ren and they stare at each other.

"She is not as useless as a normal human, I will grant. As to our bargain. It still stands… Come here child." Sesshomaru released Ren's arm and she was forced to stand alone before the white-haired woman that could have been a goddess in her own right. "My son has forced my hand to aid you. I do not approve of his methods…" The silence hung and she smiled almost wickedly. "You have spoken to her to be polite… She listens well… As such… Kusabana Ren, Amaterasu incarnate and blooded, mated woman to my son… what is it about my son that you believe you can claim him as yours?"

.

Ren stopped breathing.

_She said what?!_

A handful of seconds passed and Ren drew in a steady breath. She could say nothing without spewing something that sounded human. She was human after all so what could she say. So, instead of shrinking before his mother like she wanted to and instead of heeding what was more than likely the best advice Sesshomaru could have given her, Ren answered in the only way she could.

As a human.

"I don't make a claim on him. How could I? I can only tell him that I love him, attempt to show what resides in my heart and even if they are lowly, human feelings and cannot come close to what he might receive from perhaps another demon… I won't stop trying. I won't give up and I won't' give in. I don't care if they are human, demon, god or even you…" _Ok, maybe I do care if it's you… For a woman you scare the fricken crap out of me… _"I want to fight to stay beside him." His mother's smile faded into an exact duplicate form of Sesshomaru's normal no-emotion look.

"Perhaps not so well informed then…" Sesshomaru stepped in line with Ren and put his hand over her mouth to stop her from yelling which she so very much wanted to do. In fact… she was going to tell her off. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn't so she might as well feel good about it.

.

Ren pulled down Sesshomaru's hand .

.

"You call yourself a mother!" Sesshomaru's mother paused and turned enough to see Ren. "A mother cares for the safety for her child! Wants them to grow into a person that all love and adore! Wishes them happiness and stands beside them when they want comfort and guards behind them when they need support!" Sesshomaru broke his calm façade and pulled Ren back and away.

"Silence Ren!"

"No!" She twisted in his arm and continued her verbal war. "You never saw his children! Did you morn there death! I didn't bare them into this world! I didn't watch them grow and die young, but I have cried for them! I have met them reborn into this world and yet you force one of them to sleep outside as if she carried a plague!"

"Ren! Hold your tongue!"

"I've stood beside him! I waited in his shadow for him to just look at me and was happy like I've never been… Do you not understand, that to insult me, to degrade me and the people he has chosen to stand with me, if only in his shadow, brings him sorrow?... Do you care?" Sesshomaru had given up trying to subdue Ren and looked down at her as if she were a burden he no longer wished to bare. "…forgive me… I can't be someone I'm not… not even for her. Not even for you. Otherwise I will find a way back home because it was not me you came looking for on the other side of time."

"You speak as if I do not have a heart, child. I have lived for well over two thousand years. I have birthed only one child and before me he stands. He is about to wage war on the Gods of this world for a woman who has lived three times and yet not lived as long as I have… The last woman he took lived long because of a shared blood-bond that later would kill her. I watched as two grandchildren grew into earthly flowers and then die and wither away… You think you understand so much." Satin whispered on the marble floor as Sesshomaru's mother stepped close to Ren. Something in those eyes, something that explained her hatred of human emotion and all other things almost screamed in Ren's ear.

"You can't leave this place…" The Inu no fuku-taishou drew back a step and glared. "You can't leave… that's why you hate humans. Because you have been here, guarding this place, the bridge between the worlds… unable to live yourself… The one person you loved gave you Sesshomaru… and then he left as well… for a human."

"Silence!" Sesshomaru pulled Ren away from his mother and pushed her behind him.

"Mother."

"Take your woman away… I do not wish to see her again. The bargain I will honor, if only for you. Do not expect anything beyond what we agreed upon, Sesshomaru."

"I'm sorry…" She said it to both of them, but Sesshomaru took her hand and pulled her away towards the door. "If I can stop this, if I can fix this, I'll make it so you can leave this place! I promise! I swear it!"

"Ren, stop this."

"Wait." Sesshomaru became ridged against her and she wished she could take back everything she had ever said in all of her life.

"You have a strange power, even for a god incarnate… Bring this place to the ground. Remove the bindings that keep me here and I shall forgive you. If you cannot… You must either leave my son and return to your time or cease to exist altogether… and then I shall forgive you." Sesshomaru growled and a smirked crossed his mother's face.

The truth had been revealed. The bridge was not a bridge at all, but a guard tower from which Sesshomaru's mother stood as sentinel. Rem couldn't think why she was the chosen guardian, but it explained a great deal about the woman and her personality. The Inu no fuku-taishou was bound to this place until this place and its purpose no longer existed and all three understood what that meant. Either a bridge built by the gods had to brought to ruin or the gods themselves.


	34. Izanami's Fate  Izanagi's Penance

The room emptied of its occupants rather quickly and Rem never did enter it again. Walking at a pace she knew Sesshomaru would find annoying Rem hurried down the hall and right passed their joint room.

"Where are you going?" She did not answer Sesshomaru. "Do not make me ask again."

.

Rem met her boiling point.

.

"Don't you dare tell me what to do! No now or ever again! Do _I _make myself clear? You've have gone about this 'relation-ship' as if you were the only one in it. Guess what? You aren't!" Rem spun the obi of her kimono trailing loose on the ground. "You have made deals, plans, and made assumptions that are not yours to make!" She dropped it to the floor without a sound and continued walking and undressing one piece at a time.

"Rem. Stop." She didn't.

"You think I will just stand here and wait? Wait and watch while god only knows what is going to happen? You expect me to stand here while someone comes for me? To kill me, you and everyone else here? Are you mad or just deranged inside that tiny self-centered and delusional head of yours?" The outer layers dropped to the ground and Sesshomaru left them were they lay as he followed after Rem while she ranted. "And your mother! Your mother…." Rem made odd sounds that he assumed where attempts at saying what she wanted and him never knowing what they were. He knew enough to know she had nothing nice to say in the slightest. "You…. You…" The last bit of clothing fell away leaving her in only a white shift. "You can sleep all on your own!" He realized that they both stood at the front door and she had already opened it and was standing in its frame.

"Rem… do not leave this place. You are safer here than outside." Rem raised her hand and he thought for a moment that she might throw something she might have had, but to his surprise she pulled down on her eyelid and stuck out her tongue.

"And I said stop thinking you have the ability to tell me what to do." The door closed and he let it. At this point it was almost wise for her to leave his side. Tsukiyomi would come for him first knowing he was a threat. Second would be that he could not concentrate while she was around and finally… it anything did happen. His mother was oath bound to act and step in should it be needed. It didn't change the sordid fact that without her in his sights and within his grasp was harder than anything else… Not to mention the strange turn of events involving his mother. Why hadn't she said anything? Why had she not told him of her inability to leave this place? He had always assumed that this was just her home, that she would naturally be here most times… not that she some kind of a prisoner on the bridge into god realm.

"My Lord! My Lord!" Jaken slid to a stop carrying the near full ensemble that had been Rem's cloths. "What has happened?" The clothes lay heaped over his tiny green, pebble-like skin.

.

"Rem has decided to stay with the group outside. You are to go with her and guard her at all costs. Do I make myself clear Jaken? Fail in your task and I will kill you." Jaken gulped loudly and followed in Rem's shadow.

The fact that Sesshomaru was now left alone inside this place was oddly unnerving so he returned to the room where his mother and Rem clashed and opened a portal. He waited a moment before putting his hand into it and then pulling back with resistance from the other side.

"You will come through and do what has been demanded of you." And he yanked back hard and drew something out of the portal.

.

.

.

The path wound down slowly and Rem stalked off in what was equivalent to underwear. Jaken stumbled to catch up, but to do this was utter failure and Ren slowed down for him.

"I don't want you to mention his name. If you do, I swear it on my own grave. I will kill you." He shivered and wondered if they were any place on the earth that he could hid and decided it was not worth it to find out.

"Ren-sama?" Rin stopped in the middle of the path while holding a steaming pot of something. "Would you like to eat with us?" She was polite enough to not ask what was the mater which Ren loved her for.

"Thank you Rin… I would love to." Both walked down the path where InuYasha sat next to Miroku and Sango while discussing something obviously important.

"Ren? What did that idiot do now? Did you finally start to realize that Sesshomaru is not the knight in shining armour you thought he was?" Ren stopped and Rin stared at InuYasha in shock. Even she could not believe InuYasha was being such a fool.

"Do you know that every time you open that gaping hole you call a mouth, I have to recall that it is far from nice to wish their older, full demon brother and startlingly handsome man to not kill him and not leave a trace?" Ren's lack of an almost evil smile told InuYasha what everyone's faces should have. That he had gone too far. "Do you love Kagome? Would you do anything to save her? Protect her? Even if it meant leaving her behind and shattering her heart? Leaving her empty and void inside? Have you ever had to make the choice of taking the brunt off everything just so you could make sure she would walk away, unscathed and intact?" InuYasha looked to the ground and away. "Then you know very well that Sesshomaru is everything you claim he isn't and even though I hate him right now and he would do these things to me… I…" The tears started. "He's going to leave me! He's going to do something stupid and leave me behind! His mother is trapped in that place and cannot leave, the god of the moon is after me and you still think after all this that I would want to hear your sarcastic brooding?!" She walked over to InuYasha and stopped, her hand balled into fist. "I just want to be like you and Kagome…" Her fist dropped and when InuYasha stood she latched onto him tightly while sobbing. "I just want to have what you have!" He didn't tell her that he tried to send Kagome away, that they both had been chased and hunted then almost killed. He couldn't do that and give her the hope that she might walk away from this… that she might not loss his brother. That she might not die herself… He'd never had a god come for him and Kagome and try to tear them from the other… Just thinking about it made him angry… He might lose her still. If he and his brother could not deal with the threat that was Tsukiyomi, he might lose Kagome and everyone he has ever cared about.

"I will help… I help my brother to take him down… Tsukiyomi won't beat Sesshomaru. I won't let him."

From inside the small tent that they had made for sleeping in, Kagome sat kneeling by the door. She rubbed the tears in her eyes at the fears that were running through her and Ren and more than likely in Sango as wells mind. Naraku had been a half human and nearly killed everyone. Kikyo had been a human and nearly killed her and she had been only human… They were dealing with gods now.

After a moment Kagome opened the tent door and stopped short of InuYasha and Ren.

"We need a plan. Sesshomaru can't be the only one with an idea. We need something that is fool proof and we know for sure will work… Ren? You have the powers of a god inside of you. They are fading fast, I can feel it, but you pulled some of them back to you when you brought us all here. You can fend Tsukiyomi off. You have the power to slow him down if not stop him… but we need something that will bring him down. Now… despite the fact that a god incarnate is reborn as a demon and a demon I can purify, I doubt very greatly that I can do anything to a god… but we have more godly back up then you think." Ren looked at Kagome as if this had been the first time she had said anything smart. "Remember when InuYasha and Tsukiyomi first started to fight it out? He forced InuYasha back into his human form…" InuYasha scowled.

"Last time I checked that wasn't a good thing Kagome." She glared and he shut up quickly.

"What I mean is 'why'? Why make it so he couldn't fight? Was he worried that being part demon yourself made you godly as well? Something to be feared? And we have the sword that was Susanoo's… the wind sword. I bet… that if used at the same time rather than as against each other, your wind scar would have so much more power that it might be enough to help defeat a god." Miroku stood up and punched his fist into his other hand.

"Your right! Tsukiyomi abandoned the weapon after InuYasha used it against him. It was useless to him, but in our hands… and then you, Ren. You repelled him in a very powerful shield. I think that you are the key. Both of your powers are shared between two halves and I think that one cannot overcome the other. Otherwise why would he have allowed so much time to go by without destroying Sesshomaru outright or taking you? I think it because you can't over power the other, but with InuYasha's help… we might be able to use the power that is Susanoo who is fully powered… that sword might be our only chance…" Miroku paused and then closed his mouth. His eyes went from looking at Ren to looking through her.

"Miroku?" Sango turned and followed his eyes and stopped just as he had which made Ren turn.

"You will not wield the Kusanagi against my brother. You will relinquish the hold you have on my powers and you will leave this place. It is not for mortals."

.

Standing two feet taller than InuYasha stood a golden haired woman. Her hair was tugged back into a half pony and strung up in red ribbons. Her eyes were amber colored and she wore a ceremonial garb what changed colors in the light yet remained white all the same. The Goddess Amaterasu had come for something Ren still had and the Goddess could not take of just will power alone.

"Why are you allowing him to do this to us? We didn't ask for this? Why aren't you helping us?" Sango questioned the goddess directly.

"A human does not have the right to judge a god." Her answer was stern and tart.

"He is not a full god. He is just a shell of his former self otherwise he would not be mad and you would not be here asking for something of a human." Ren released her hold on InuYasha's hand and stood alone. "I will give you whatever you want if you can swear that the lives here are safe guarded. That Sesshomaru will not be the target of your insane brother and that his mother can leave this place." Amaterasu looked mildly confused.

"No person stands guard of this place. Only one of godly decent could stay on the bridge of the worlds. Who is this woman that you speak?"

"Sesshomaru's mother… I don't know her name… but she is kept here by something? Shouldn't you know?" Amaterasu looked back at the bridge and its mansion of red and cream colored walls then back again.

"Isn't this just sweet?" Ren paled and managed to begin lifting her chin when InuYasha blew passed her leaving an impact streak behind him.

"InuYasha!" Shouting ensued and Ren knew that her reprieve had run short. Too short.

"Tsukiyomi… Do not harm the humans." Laughter rang out. His answer as clear now as it had been before.

"Harm them? Harm involves pain and they won't feel a thing…" Ren's eyes focused on Tsukiyomi who was haggard looking at best. His battle with Susanoo had been violent and short lived.

"Where is Susanoo? You have not killed him have you?" Amaterasu continued to question her brother while Kagome disappeared into the dirt cloud that was InuYasha.

"Kill him? No, my dear brother fled… said he was going to tattle on me to father… of all people…"

"Otosan…" Ren looked down at her hands and wondered just how much the God Izanagi knew? "Izanagi! Please! If you can hear me, why don't you act! Why don't you protect us?! Your own creations! How could you allow your family to fight among themselves?! How can you allow this?! Otosan!" Ren's cried went unanswered.

"You should not speak of what you know little of. Izanagi is our father… no relation to you, human." Ren wanted to tell Amaterasu just how wrong she was, but time was slipping away. Ren would have tried something, but InuYasha stepped by her while duel wielding the swords Kusanagi and Tetseiga.

"You have no right to chase us around. To hurt us for your own mistakes. You have no right to try and take from us what you lost… You know what I think? Finders keepers." InuYasha pulled back both weapons and the wind stilled. "And you don't like it…"

"Wait." Ren stopped InuYasha. Her mind began working a mile a minute and she found what she was looking for. The reason that everything had become so strange. Sesshomaru's mother's prison, Sesshomaru being Tsukiyomi's incarnation, the impossible similarities between this time and the future. It all unravelled in one moment.

"I know why everything is so wrong… I understand now…" She looked back at the mansion and then the bridge and realized its full potential. "InuYasha… I have to get back to the Mansion. Don't let them stop me."


	35. Rewinding Death

Ren's feet slapped loudly along the marbled floor one she pushed through the door to the mansion. A list compiled in her brain of things left unexplained, things that made no sense to her when everything else was going together in one way of another. A knot twisted into her side as she pushed through another door and ran recklessly down another corridor towards the room she had shared with Sesshomaru.

_Sesshomaru is half of Tsukiyomi, I with the goddess, Rem's sister with Susanoo. Izanami dead and missing, Izanagi refuses to act on mankind behalf. Why had everything spiralled down into such a mess of things? Was it one thing that triggered this all or was it a degration of some many that it would take time to fix if it could be fixed at all._

"Sesshomaru-sama! Sesshomaru!... Jaken!" She reached the door to the room and slammed up against the door before pushing it open. She was breathless and her legs shook with the adrenaline working through her.

"Ren-sama?"Jaken stare at her as if he wasn't sure she was real and she ignored it for more important things.

"I need answers and quickly. Tsukiyomi is here along with Amaterasu and where the hell is Sesshomaru?" She paced restless and decided she would interrogate Jaken in Sesshomaru's stead. "Tell me, all you know of this place, Sesshomaru's parents. Everything. The key to fixing this has to bet here whether between him or me and god and can't think right inside my own brain." She dropped down to her knees and held Jaken's shoulders, he looked at her bewildered and took a deep breath before saying his next words.

"… Sesshomaru's parents are both full demons. Strong even amongst themselves they made a fearsome match. I'm not sure what made Sesshomaru's father do what he did, but he did leave for a human woman. I'm not sure what drove him to it. I remember them never being actually happy though… They never fought, they never argued... It would have been beneath them… but they were not happy either. Sesshomaru was the only thing that bridged them together. When InuYasha was born, Sesshomaru's mother became taciturn… I have never known her to show any form of kindness… not on any human scale until she revived Rin for her son's sake. Something on that day changed her, if only a little. You could see it in her face. As if an ache had finally disappeared." Jaken continued talking, but he had already said something that had engaged Rem's mind.

"How did Sesshomaru's mother save the girl. How did she save Rin?" She recalled suddenly that Sesshomaru's mother also bore the blazing emblem of a god on her head and mentally slapped herself. Everyone that bore the greater part of a godly soul wore a physical mark on the head.

"A necklace. I brought back Rin's soul from beyond…" Jaken stare the tiled floor as if the memory pained him greatly.

"Tell me the account of that day; all of it. I think _you_ have the answer to everything. You of all people and you don't even know it. Tell me Jaken, quickly." Ren sat on the ground and gave him her full attention. Jaken cleared his throat and took a few moments to make sure he recalled all that he could while Ren gripped her pant leg and twisted as time slowly trickled away.

"Sesshomaru wanted to become stronger. He wanted to defeat all of his enemies with little effort. He'd gone to meet his mother and she opened a way into Hell. Sesshomaru, Rin and Kohaku entered Hell and I remained behind…" Jaken rubbed his hands together to hide his own guilt over cowardice. "Kohaku was human, but he was special. The boy was dead, but alive. He was kept animated by a shard of the Shikon jewel or Shikon-no-tama. Rin had no such protection… as they went further and further into Hell Rin's life force was being drained away and no one noticed until it was too late… "Ren twisted her pant-leg. If she didn't know that Rin was alive and just outside the gate, this story might have frightened her. She allowed Jaken to continue unimpeded. "They were attacked by the creatures of Hell and Sesshomaru's mother offered them a way out, but they did not take it and Rin passed away… Sesshomaru ended his quest for power then. I believe he thought Rin's life too precious compared to a weapon and power because he tossed the sword away. The gift and memento his father left for him was cast aside and as Rin became colder and colder, they were attacked by the very keeper of the dead. In Sesshomaru's grief though the creature was no match and lay dead soon after… That's when it happened. The sword that Sesshomaru had thrown away began to glow in tune to the sadness in Sesshomaru's heart. It longed to free the trapped souls of hell and Sesshomaru did just that. No soul would ever remain in that place ever again… The power that Sesshomaru has been seeking at the cost of Rin's life had come to him though. He had given up power for the life of a human; just as his father would have and done… The gateway to Hell opened once again and admitted them back into this place… I did not know then that it was a bridge between the life and death, but Sesshomaru's mother looked at Rin and Sesshomaru and revived her with a necklace she wore."

She was silent a moment while her brain worked in overdrive.

"WE have to find Sesshomaru, come with me, quickly." Jaken stood, but did not follow and for the first time she paid mind to his dismissive attitude and odd demeanour. "Jaken…"

"Sesshomaru said to keep you here. That you cannot leave this place…" Suddenly the room she thought she had been in was not there. She sat on a stone floor that was cold and slightly damp. "He said if it became safe that you would be allowed out."

"You said if it was safe I could leave… but not that he would come to get me." His face contorted slightly as he bent down.

"I offer the same pledge that kept me bound to My Lord Sesshomaru… When my term with My Lord ends so does it begin with you…"

"You little bastard!" She picked him up and shook him. He did not resist. "Let me out! Let me help him! I demand it of you! You swore did you not?" Jaken cringed and shook.

"I am sworn to you only afterwards…" She felt her legs become like jello and she stared that the wall behind Jaken's head.

"Don't do this… Don't keep me from him like this! I swear I will kill you Jaken if you do not let me out!" She lifted him and he looked away. "Let me out. We can help him! We can make this right! Please!" A small saddened look was all she got from him and she dropped him remorselessly. "This was the bargain made between Sesshomaru and his mother… The moment I entered the room I was under a spell. None of it even happened... This is all an illusion by the Inu no fuku-taishou… but she told me that she was a prisoner of this place! That she cannot leave! That was no illusion. Don't you understand? Sesshomaru's mother has to be the reincarnated soul of Izanami! That was why she gave birth to the reincarnation of Tsukiyomi and why after everything, it wasn't until Hell had been purified that she started to become normal. All gods that are not whole are not right. They become deranged and deluded… Izanagi… Izanagi doesn't know… He doesn't know! He probably spent years waiting on earth for her to revive and she was stuck here, all this time!" Ren turned away from him and pleaded for her own father to listen to her pleas. "Izanagi-sama! Stop this madness! If you don't, the woman that you loved and lost to Hell it-self will die once again…" She planned an entire speech, but it was not required. The God of creation, Izanagi appeared before her. No smoke or light, he was just suddenly there.

"You call out to me with such strength of heart. It is very hard to ignore you… child." He paused and looked her over as if seeing her again. "You are part of me. I have sensed this for a long time, but I do not recall making you. What is your name and who is your other half?" She wanted to hug him, but he was very different from the father she knew in the future. This version of her father seemed like he was ready to die and it was a painful thing to see.

"My name is Kusabana Rem. I'm your child from the future… and my mother's name is Kusabana Izumi… The future reincarnation of Izanami." He did not call her a liar or deny her claim. He waited and listened. "All of your family has been reincarnated as humans or demons. Your children became the full demon, Sesshomaru, me, a human and finally another human named Lore. Your wife came back as Sesshomaru's mother… She was fully released from her prison when her future son came and purified the souls of Hell. She finally began to heal from her hatred and rage that had consumed her about her death. She is trapped on the bridge, unable to return to what she once was and incompatible with life away from it. This is the closest that she can come to perfection, but it's not enough… Please…" She finally thought she had said enough to get the god of creation to end his inaction. "He's going to die. I'm going to lose him if you don't hurry and stop all of this." He looked at Ren with barely a change in attitude.

"I remain neutral." The words startled her. She couldn't believe it.

"The woman you created the world with is going to die! Don't you care?!" Ren stepped forward either not caring that Izanagi was a god or perhaps hoping that he would destroy her and she would be with Sesshomaru once Tsukiyomi had destroyed everything.

"You would ask me to bend time backwards again... but you cannot change fate. All those that you love will die around you as they already have once before. Does time matter to you that much?" And he was gone. She suddenly wondered if that was not some kind of hoax or mirage made from stress because she couldn't even recall exact details of his person even though he'd been present just moments ago. She turned around and watched as Izanagi ran a hand along the stone walls of her prison. "You have been locked inside this room for longer than you believe, goreijou." Her heart slammed to a stop.

"How long?" She continued to watch as his hand came to a stop and he vanished just to spear elsewhere in the room. All the while his hand caressed the wall.

"You do not ask the right questions, but I will answer you. The sun as risen and died 31 times while you remain unawares. You slept one night in the mansion upon the bridge before being locked away in this room. So you understand why this place has no way out?" Ren furrowed her brow at being asked such a strange question then took and closer look at the stone walls around her.

"Because I am not meant to escape?" Izanagi tilted his head slightly and continued speaking.

"It is because this place, the space that you occupy, this stone that you see around you is all that there is to this place. There is nothing beyond the stone walls you see here and thus there is no place to escape too. This is your world." The idea that nothing existed beyond the walls around her made her feel extremely small and she began to feel like the air was running out.

"Why are you neutral?" That question seemed to be what Izanagi was waiting for.

"It is my own punishment. I have innocent blood on my hands and so I will pay for it; blood for blood. Izanami died in child birth; birthing Kagatsuchi, a son, a misshapen and horrid thing and when she died, I took his life. I chased after her, but upon entering the place known as Hell… It was I that tainted her. She would have been reborn had I not chased her. The fruit she ate; the food that made her ugly and disfigured was my own going. The taint of my son had followed me to the after world and infected it before I could reach Izanami. My sons rage and pain became hers and nothing I did could save her. I had doomed her to this fate and I left… I created three beings to compensate for what would be my absence from the world. Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and Susanoo. I gave Tsukiyomi the night sky because Izanami loved it so. I gave Susanoo the storm for she loved the smell of rain and because she was the greatest part of me, Amaterasu was given then universe... perhaps it was that all our children came to earth that Amaterasu loved this world so much…"

"If you will not act then let me. You said only your children could act. Well I am such a child. Twice over now. Rewind time and I will try all in my being to make it right." Izanagi turned and faced Ren, in his hands was something her eyes could not quite see because it was so bright. She could only manage to see the bladed edge of a naginata which seemed to bend the light onto itself.

"I will rewind time for it is not action in itself, but be warned. The future has a way of ending much the same of those trapped by fate. Come goreijou, you must see what has happened in the past to be able to act upon it. This is your payment for meddling with time."

For the last time Izanagi vanished. She did not see him again. A moment passed and she remained still. The instant she shifted to move the world upended itself. The grey stone that had made up her prison melted away, Jaken no longer stood with her and she feared she might throw up when the world corrected itself.


	36. Writing The Future Alone

Time had stopped at the peak of everything gone completely wrong. The battle scene before her was frozen in a tableau horror and dread. There was so much pain, so much death and Ren retch until nothing remained in her stomach. Every single person she had met. Every single person with a future had been snuffed out in the moments that would follow this scene if time began running once more. She was unsure of how things had become so wrong, but this was how it was about to end at the end of time

.

The sky had darkened with the arrival of Susanoo. The clouds themselves looked ready to weep a thousand years' worth of tears. Human, God and demon would all meet the same end. Susanoo knelt holding his sister who bled what looked like gold. It shone as the life force slowly flowed from her veins and into a world that would never heal from the loss. Both cried as for the first time both looked more human than they ever had. They looked no different from a woman crying for her dead husband, child for a broken toy or even the simple tears shed at a sad movie. It moved Ren to cry with them as she moved her eyes to the next visage.

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This was of Sango, her body had wound up in a tree that had been blasted apart. Her limbs were twisted where a body could not manage normally and in the lower branches was her beloved. Miroku was reaching for her hand, his fingers just barely touching her blood caked nails. His back was turned to the orb of red death that was careening towards him from a completely maddened Tsukiyomi. Ren felt such a heavy load sink into her heart knowing fully well that everyone in this scene had someone who loved them, but that Sesshomaru would be alone.

.

She scanned the scene again and passed over quickly what she knew was Sesshomaru. She would wait to see him. She had to memorize the scene so she could make sure it did not happen. If she looked at Sesshomaru now, she would lose her grip and fall apart. Very little was holding together as it stood and now she turned see torn piece of red clothe behind a large overturned boulder. Behind it was Kagome who was draped in InuYasha's cloak. She no longer had any tears to shed. Stains marred her face where the tears had cleaned away dirt and mud, her eyes were empty as she looked down into her own hand. In her palm was a single bead.

It was not the color it should have been and Ren dry heaved painfully.

"No more… no more… Make it stop. It's not right. It should be this way! Why did they all have to die!?" Her eyes turned to the only brightness aside from Amaterasu's blood. Sesshomaru stood with Rin behind him. He was shielding her with his own flesh and she protected something as well.

.

It was a body.

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"Sesshomaru and I made a deal. Remember?" Ren turned and looked around for something alive, something moving and then she saw it. "He promised to have the battle here, to destroy all that was the bridge between the worlds and in turn I would steal your soul." Ren stared out while Sesshomaru's mother stopped beside her. "A lifeless body is nothing… but a soul… a soul can be reborn. He had seen it done time and time again in his brother's wife, his children and his own wife. He wanted to make sure that you would live again. Even if it might not be with him." Ren leaned forward, her head on the ground with her legs tucked underneath. She could have bawled for an eternity.

"Izanami…" The Inu no fuku-taishou picked her up and held her like a child which made her cry all the harder.

"Sesshomaru's father never set me aside. Did you know? It was I that forswore him. He was faithful until I told him that I no longer had use for him. His love for the human woman I watched grow by the day and it pained me; not to see him without her, but that it was I that kept them apart. It wounded me. I explained that a child of worth was all I had expected from him and with Sesshomaru born, the Inu no Taishou was of no importance. He left knowing I was lying in part, but had respect enough to not push it. I loved him, parts of him, but for all his strength, love and purity… he lacked something irreplaceable." Ren twisted her hands into cold satin and a hand brushed down her hair. "I also never had a name. I was born with a name, but I never used it and because no name ever sounded right. Izanami sounds like… as sweet as when I first held my son." The hand fell away and Ren straightened herself out.

"You have no idea who you really are, do you?" Izanami shook her head and looked away from the death before her.

"I am me and I would change little aside from doing all that I can to see this time pay out differently. I would not see my child die. Not like this. Not without the one he loves… It pains me to even imagine."

.

The woman before Ren was so different from who she had imagined meeting and all else. She felt pain and joy, worries and fears and was as close to Ren's heart as her own mother was. She felt a bond so strong that it lent strength where before she felt weak and useless. The wind blew lightly and Ren watched everything begin rewinding backwards.

Amaterasu's blood flowed back into her veins.

InuYasha took back his cloak from Kagome and his necklace wound itself around his neck.

Sango flew back to the ground and Miroku ran to catch up.

Shippo soared onto the scene on a giant flaming lion and Rin step back and away from shielding something of her own.

.

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It was Ren's body and blazing on her forehead was the symbol of the sun, but it was different that it was before… surrounding the sun was four magatama and they shone with a bright light.

"What can I do to undo all of this?" But no–one answered her, only the gentle breeze spoke as it picked up her errant soul and blew it back into her body.

.

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Time began moving once more.


	37. Ninigi No Mikoto

Sound screamed back into the world and stunned Ren. She gripped her ears to silence the ringing to little avail. Laughter, fire crackling and Sesshomaru's heavy breathing were the first things she could discern from the onslaught to her hearing. Rin pulled away and looked down at her with shock.

"Sesshomaru-sama! It's Ren." Sesshomaru turned immediately and grit his teeth.

"Impossible… Get her away from this place. Now." Rin cringed slightly as she turned and Ren noticed a bruise along her arm and shoulder.

"Who did this to you? Are you alright?" Rin never got a chance to answer.

"How nice of you to come back. We missed you at the end of the world, sister." Tsukiyomi floated in the sky that was a roil of grey and black clouds. "I could not believe my lesser half when he said he had killed you off."

"What do you want from me? Tell me truthfully." Ren pushed Rin away and glared at her to run as fast and as far as she could. Rin listened without being told twice to Sesshomaru's great displeasure. Tsukiyomi's face calmed despite his imposing aura.

"I want… it to all go back. I want you by my side. I want this place… to cease to exist. I want you all dead." The final sentence was like the sound of a race being started. Instantly Sesshomaru leapt into the sky and swung the Bakusaiga at Tsukiyomi's head.

"I will not allow this." Amaterasu appeared in front of Tsukiyomi, protecting him. Sesshomaru's blade was side slung and for a moment everyone seemed to be safe… until Tsukiyomi drew back his hand and tore through Amaterasu's rib cage. Liquid light flowed outward and Ren realized that time was simply rewriting itself. Susanoo caught her as she fell.

.

.

At this rate everyone would still die.

.

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"I'll come with you then. But these people must live. Susanoo had to prove his sincerity once. Prove yours to me by letting these people live."

"She will do no such thing!" Sesshomaru materialized behind her with his arm wrapped around her waist. Tsukiyomi bared his teeth at the very sight and raised a hand dripping with the blood of his own sister. Inches above his fingertips formed a single dot of swirling blackness. The wind was no match for the draw the darkness had and was drained inward. Behind Ren was InuYasha and Kagome, he was handing her his cloak and drawing his own weapon. Time was moving forward too quickly.

.

Tsukiyomi opened his hand, palm upward to the sky and Amaterasu shoved against Susanoo. Her hand moved so quickly that Sesshomaru didn't have time to act let alone Ren. A silver, three inch needle shot out from Amaterasu's hand and into Sesshomaru's chest. Instantly he pulled the small thing out and a tiny stream of blood began to pour out of him.

"If you take my love… I will take yours…" Ren turned back to Sesshomaru and they realized together that the blood would not stop. The tiny blade had shot through his skin, between his ribs and into his heart.

"I didn't want to! He leaves me no choice!" Sesshomaru flexed his fingers and Tsukiyomi burst into fits of laughter.

"Look! I didn't have to do a thing. This woman had a use after all." Maniacal cheering ensued. "Watch as slowly his life slips from between those weak fingers of his." Just the sound of his voice pained Ren as red stained Sesshomaru white clothes.

"Sesshomaru… no, no, no, no…" Sesshomaru dropped to a knee and Ren knelt with her hands on his chest trying to will the bleeding to stop.

Tsukiyomi struck. The sphere of black nothing came down and stopped a mere ten feet from both Ren and Sesshomaru. A shield rose up around them made of what could only be described as the prismatic color of a soap bubble. Beams of black shots outwards and drove deep wounds into the ground, in the distance and mansion broke away from its foundation and disappeared into the growing center of Tsukiyomi's attack.

"Issen no arashi tenma!* (Storm of a thousand demons) InuYasha swung the Kusanagi horizontally across his chest and then swung the Tetsaiga vertically. The union of the two was devastating and aimed true at its target. Tsukiyomi shielded the attack with a black shield much like Ren's and was forced back nearly 40 feet.

The last thing anyone heard was an ear piece screech as Sesshomaru began to fade in and out of conscious. Ren's life was eroding around her.

"Ren-sama!" Kagome rushed to Ren's side and InuYasha followed just behind her.

"Sesshomaru. Don't you dare let this guy defeat you." Sesshomaru ignored his brother and sister-in-law.

"Ren..." She wouldn't hear it. Izanagi had said it from the beginning. Time had a way of playing out the same no matter what you did. What is fate if it can be twisted around at whim after all?

"You came from no-where. You threatened my life… You threaten his life. Your chased us and tormented us with fear of death. And for what?! The thrill of the game?!" Ren stood up and screamed her outrage. It rumbled out of her chest like distant thunder until suddenly Tsukiyomi lowered his shield and the black orb died out.

"Amaterasu…" His head lowered and he looked at blood stained hands. "Susanoo…" His eyes traveled from his brother to his actual sister and recognition crossed his face for the first time. "I have not been dreaming? I am alive again?" Amaterasu whispered something no person could hear and Susanoo wept for the first time.

"Ren?" Ren walked forward towards the God of the night and of the moon. It took her almost five minutes to reach him and when she did his head reeled sideways as her hand made impact with his cheek. It was the only thing she could do because she knew she could not look back. She knew what waited for her if she looked back. Time had change, but she was still on the losing side.

"I have… done these things?" Tsukiyomi was bewildered.

"Give him back… Give him back to me!" Ren latched on and shook him. He was startled and stepped away from her in awe of being manhandled.

"I cannot." His eyes met her and she punched him. Once, twice and a third time. Susanoo ran over to stop her or she would have continued. Tsukiyomi never once moved to stop her.

"Give him back, Give him BACK!" Ren was losing touch with reality.

"Kusabana Ren." Ren went limp in Susanoo's arms and he lowered her to the ground. "I forewarned you. Did I not? That time cannot be undone. You have seen the future yourself. There are things that must be. I offer a choice to you…" Izanagi passed Tsukiyomi and Susanoo, Amaterasu, the god birth from one of his eyes resting in his arms. "I have sealed shut the gaps of time to those who do not belong. You are of both times and I ask you, which life do you wish to live? The one where the demon Sesshomaru is nothing but a memory or where you have a home with a father, a mother and a sibling because in this world you do not have any of those. After you choose, I will remove all the errant remains of the gods that have died. Nothing will remain of us on this world. I will strip all that is of us and demons will be no more. Only the memory of us will remain and the bridge will no longer be needed. I myself will stand guard in this world as sentinel. No god or human besides me will mingle ever again and thus end this cycle of death." Ren stared into her hands and with her head bent low, she walked towards Kagome and InuYasha.

"Ren… don't do this… You don't have to…" She shoved him out of the way.

"Let me see him." She bent down and without looking at his face, Ren leaned over Sesshomaru's body and screamed. She screamed and screamed until it hurt to continue, but even then she screamed. "I can't! I can't!... I can't leave him…. Oh god it hurts…" She rocked back and forth while holding on to him. She was thankful that he was still warm. She didn't know what she would do it he'd already grown cold.

"Your decision has been made. Time will flow as it should with you on this side of it." Ren felt an odd tingle over her body as the last remains of Amaterasu were drained from her. She was surprised that she could actually fell the difference of not having any part of Amaterasu in her. She had somehow assumed she hadn't changed despite it all.

"Ren… I am sorry for all that we as Gods have done to you. I would like you to keep these… as ways to remember the time you had with us and Sesshomaru."

"I don't want to remember you… I just want him back." Amaterasu left Ren in her grief. On the ground rested the Yasakani no Magatama jewel and Yasa no Kagami mirror.

"There is nothing I can say or offer to make amends for what we have done… I can only hope that the future offers you some kind of joy." Susanoo took Amaterasu and helped her across the bridge. It would soon be destroyed to keep the gods and mankind apart.

"Kusabana Ren. Born from Amaterasu. Born from Izanagi. My sister and my beloved… unlike my sister and brother, there is something I can do to aid you in your time of pain. I cannot bring back your Sesshomaru, being that all demons will soon be gone… I can give you hope. The full moon will rise and wane eight times and you will feel love again ten times greater than anything you would have known. Do not despair…" Ren's mind surged as she remember that she was carrying a child. She had somehow forgotten and then she began to panic.

"If the gods will no longer be allowed on this side of the bridge, what about Amaterasu's child? What about the future?" Tsukiyomi smiled and Ren got the bigger scope of what was happening. She was going to be the mother to histories Ninigi no Mikoto who is the grand child of Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun. His son would become the first emperor of Japan.

"The future is safe and will continue unchanged through you…" Ren touched her stomach and reached for the mirror which had been fixed and the jewel. Both items along with InuYasha's Kusanagi would be given to her child in the future and he would gift them to his child making him the emperor who would unite Japan.

"We must leave now…" Ren watched until only Izanagi remained. The moment his children cross the bridge he pointed the naginata at it and it shattered into pieces. The remains left by Tsukiyomi of the manor were also destroyed beyond recall.

"It feels so strange…" Ren looked up to see the grandmother of her child and gasped. The once pure white hair that had hung in length down her back was now black; her eyes shone a startling blue. Those eyes were haunted and clouded with tears. "He is dead… I had prayed…" She kneeled beside Ren, uncaring for the satin garments she now ruined and touched her sons face. "I can now leave this place, but I have little reason to besides you and child you now carry… does being human always hurt like this?" Ren had no answer and as she reached for Sesshomaru, the silvery color drained from his hair and became as black as his mothers. "The demon in him is gone." Ren idly straightened Sesshomaru's clothes for no apparent reason. "… Come Ren… let us leave this place."

"Wait." The God Izanagi came forward and stopped before Izanami and Ren. She looked at him as if seeing for what he was for the first time. "Do you know me?" She shook her head and he looked confused about it.

"I do not recognize you. Should I? Are you not a god?" Ren nearly toppled over. She had not gotten to tell her about her relationship with Izanagi. Despite that she stepped into him and touched his face. Something he allowed her to do. "You have a face that reminds me of my sons…" As if triggered by a word Izanagi touched Sesshomaru mothers face and she toppled backwards.

"I have removed her knowledge of this place. Being that she is only human it is strenuous for her. Those two will need a lot of care… I will be watching." Izanagi disappeared and Kagome walked over and covered her up with InuYasha's coat. He did not care too much because he had walked over to his brother's body and stood over top it.

"I told you not to let that guy kill you." InuYasha grit his teeth.

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"Do not think to make demands of me, InuYasha."


	38. Altruistic Memories

Seven month had gone by and so much had changed. Izanagi, true to his word removed all traces of the gods from the earth. Izanami became a human and has no memory of the bridge between the worlds. Only her life as a demon remains. Izanami has made residence in the estate that Sesshomaru had received from his father. It has become a noisy place with the coming of Ren's child. Kagome and Sango have taken up residence inside with Rin to InuYasha and Miroku's displeasure. Neither can stand how Izanami is demanding and still talks as if she were a demon above them.

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"Ren… your mother would like a word about something in the parlour room." Rin closed the door behind her and set down the flower arrangement Izanami seemed rather apt at making. Ren sighed and pushed the tea cup and plate off of her stomach.

"You'd think she would just make the effort to come here and save me the trip… It's hard being pregnant…" Rin giggled and Kagome shouted up from the yard outside where she was beating the dust out of a one of the carpets.

"I am going to finish this carpet and then I will start the supper! Ren-sama? Make sure your mother is on time for dinner. I hate it when she's late and complains about it being cold…" A major issue in the household was getting a person who used to be a demon used to eating human food. They were so picky about tastes that it was ridiculous. Kagome and Sango were going to lose their minds before finding something Izanami liked to eat.

"Alright… I'll be back…" Ren left the room and closed the door once again. She paused outside the door and rather than turn left and go down the stairs she turned right and to the end of the hall. "I miss you." She said to the door and from the other side someone replied.

"How can you miss someone you see every day? I do not understand you at all." Ren grinned and pushed the door open.

"Your mother is driving everyone inane again." Sesshomaru sighed and ran his hand over his face. It was strange to watch him do human type things. It was funny to see him frustrated… something InuYasha took full advantage off. Both of them still had not gotten over the fact that fighting it out now caused serious injury. Both Kagome and Ren had to mend wounds and admonish them for fights gone too far. Neither brothers were friends in the slightest, but they could no longer fight their way through it and now had yelling matches… Another daily bother.

"My mother does nothing of the sort." Ren snorted and Sesshomaru groaned.

"I beg to differ… She wants me to go down stairs and talk to her again. About gods only know what…" Sesshomaru stood up and touched her stomach that was huge.

"Stop eating food off of your stomach. You keep leaving stains." Ren glared and started back out the door.

"I am carrying a ten pound baby…"

" In your stomach and you will do what you want seeing as you carried it around for nine months and will push it out all on your own. I know. I know…" Sesshomaru had become very used to two things in the last seven months. The first was sarcasm and the second was showing his feelings. Both could be a handful at any given time, but she loved him all the same. "I will walk down with you…" Sesshomaru took her hand and walked down the hall with her. He made sure she was safe on the stairs and pestered her about her eating habits. He even got angry at her when she said she ate enough and was fat because of it.

"We have a name already, but what do you think he'll be like? What do you think he'll look like? I hope his eyes are like yours…" Ren looked up at Sesshomaru and he looked away. He was still getting used to the change of hair color and eyes. The feeling of being human would take much longer though, but he said the same thing his mother said about being human. They both somehow felt younger. "Big blue eyes such as yours… I'm jealous." Sesshomaru had always been an extremely attractive man, but give him blue eyes and black hair and he looked somehow better. Ren once explained it to Kagome as feeling like 'Campbells soup… ummm ummm good'. That Ren had said this at the dinner table caused Kagome to spit her food out of her nose which InuYasha thought was the best trick ever and demanded she do it again.

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Naturally he ended up on the floor.

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A month after that and Ren had a little boy child. They named him Ninigi no Mikoto and he had black wavy hair and brilliantly blue eyes after his father. He was born with a birth mark on this shoulder that resembled a magatama and on the wall of his room hung the Mirror and jewel. InuYasha said that when the boy was old enough for him to teach him how to fight, that he would give the Kusanagi as a gift. Sesshomaru told him that Ninigi would learn to fight from his father to which Ren had to tell them neither would be teaching him battle tactics.

This argument has been the only thing that has bonded the two brothers since and they talk about what to teach the child first when he is old enough and how to keep it from his mother.


End file.
